Charg, Monster

CHAPTER XVII. HANDS OF DEATH

“WHO are you, intruder?”

“I am Jerry Laffan. I am the servant of Charg.”

“Your token?”

“Three.”

A pause. Jerry Laffan stood silent as he eyed the screen and the seated figure beyond. He could detect a motion of the jeweled turban.

“You will join Daper,” came Charg’s grating tone. “Together, you will go to the apartment where you laid the trap so long ago. Arrive there at eleven o’clock. Are my instructions plain?”

“They are.”

“Together,” resumed Charg’s, asp, “you will remove the taboret. After that, you will return alone. Make sure the victim will not be discovered. If necessary, remove the body. Are my instructions plain?”

“Yes.”

“Charg has commanded.” The words seemed ominous.

“When Charg commands,” repeated Laffan, “his servants obey.”

The shady arm was stretching behind the screen. It was moving to the switch that operated the outer door. Laffan swung away as he heard the final words:

“Then go. To linger with Charg means death.”

It was early evening in Manhattan; Jerry Laffan had the shelter of darkness when he emerged from the building that housed Charg’s lair. The stocky man knew that there was no need for hurry. A few hours remained before his meeting with Bart Daper.

Evil was afoot. Laffan knew it from Charg’s instructions. These were emergency orders, tonight. Some one was being lured to a trap that had long since been planted. Laffan’s face showed tensely in the light of Tenth Avenue.

This was the third night since the affray at Whilton’s. Both Laffan and Daper had reported to Charg since that battle. Both had told him of The Shadow. Present plans — as Laffan saw them — could mean but one thing. A lure had been laid by Charg. The Shadow was to be enmeshed.

JERRY LAFFAN was no ordinary criminal. Dangerous though he was, he had been recruited from outside the underworld. That was one important reason why he had been useful to Charg. Jerry Laffan had no record, so far as the police were concerned. The same applied to Daper; it had also applied to Quinton.

Yet Jerry Laffan knew the menace of The Shadow. Moreover, he and Daper had encountered The Shadow, only three nights ago. Had he been on his own resources, Laffan would have fled Manhattan; but there was a staying force that kept him here: the power of Charg.

Laffan had confidence in the master whom he dreaded. Though The Shadow had gained success three nights ago, it had been in conflict with mere agents of Charg’s; not with one of the monster’s murderers.

The thought gave Laffan new confidence. His lips showed a grin.

Tonight, The Shadow would encounter a killing force. He would be met by a strangling, mangling battler — the same sort of foe that had dealt with Fallow, Dyke and Talbot. There was to be no placing of a trap — as at Whilton’s. The snare was already set.

How was The Shadow to be lured? Jerry Laffan pondered vainly over the question. He did not know that the answer was already in the making. A visitor had arrived at Herbert Whilton’s Long Island home.

Lamont Cranston, proxy for the absent philanthropist, had come to obtain Whilton’s mail.

A servant ushered Cranston into the smoking room. Alone, the visitor picked up a small stack of envelopes that lay upon a table by the telephone. One letter, its address a crude scrawl, caught the keen eyes of The Shadow. Fingers ripped open the envelope.

The note within was scrawled, in the same handwriting as the address. The Shadow read the message:

A soft laugh crept from Cranston’s firm lips. The note was definitely a lure. Its vague terms added to its crudity. An old man, like Herbert Whilton, would balk if he received such a communication.

But The Shadow knew that the note was not for Herbert Whilton. It was intended for its present reader: Lamont Cranston. It was the outgrowth of the affray between The Shadow and the agents of Charg.

The Shadow had declared himself three nights ago. On the succeeding evening, he had made his part even more apparent. He had talked to Bryce Towson of The Shadow. Shelburne had overheard.

Frederick Thorne had learned of Lamont Cranston’s statements.

The sender of this note had issued a challenge to The Shadow. It was a declaration that a death trap existed; an invitation for The Shadow to come and uncover it. Charg, master of murder, was prepared for The Shadow, lone fighter against crime.

Lamont Cranston’s tall form settled in a chair beside the table. His hands raised the telephone. Lips phrased a number. A voice responded:

“Burbank speaking.”

“Instructions to Marsland and Vincent,” whispered The Shadow. “On watch at the Aurilla Apartment, East Seventy-seventh Street, beginning at ten o’clock. Watch all arrivals. Follow any suspicious persons who depart.”

“Instructions received.”

The telephone clattered. The Shadow arose. His laugh was sibilant, confined within the smoking room.

He was ready to accept Charg’s challenge. He had also planned a counterthrust. Should agents of Charg escape tonight, they would be tracked by competent men who worked in The Shadow’s behalf.

HOURS passed. At exactly ten o’clock, a light clicked in The Shadow’s sanctum. White hands obtained the earphones. The bulb glimmered as Burbank responded to this new call.

“Burbank speaking.”

“Report.”

“Report from Vincent. He has been watching Bryce Towson’s home. Towson has been there since five o’clock. Vincent has left. He started for the Aurilla Apartment at nine thirty.”

“Report received.”

“Report from Marsland. He was watching Thorne’s. He saw Thorne go out before dinner. Thorne did not return until half an hour ago. Marsland has left for the Aurilla.”

“Word on Shelburne?”

“None. Neither Vincent nor Marsland have seen him. No report from Burke.”

“Report received.”

The earphones clattered. The light went out. A parting laugh sounded through the sanctum. From Stygian blackness, The Shadow was faring forth to new adventure.

Half past ten. The old building now called the Aurilla Apartment loomed in top-heavy style above the sidewalk of Seventy-seventh Street. To Cliff Marsland and Harry Vincent, viewing the gloomy house from across the street, two entrances were visible.

One was the front door, above a flight of brownstone steps. The other was a side portal which showed at a narrow passage beside the old house. Apparently, the apartment building — if it could be entitled to such distinction — was practically untenanted.

Blackness showed upon the brownstone steps. To Harry and Cliff, one hundred feet away, the forming shape was invisible. A cloaked figure reached the blackened door of the house. The barrier yielded to The Shadow’s touch. Easing inward, the entering visitant avoided the issuance of light from the gloomy hall. His tall form filling the opened space of the door, The Shadow succeeded in this purpose.

Ghostlike, The Shadow climbed a flight of stairs. He reached the third floor, after passing silent doors.

He found the entrance to the specified apartment. The door yielded to his touch. He stepped into a living room— crudely furnished — that was lighted by a single floor lamp.

In spectral fashion, The Shadow peered into the other rooms. The apartment was deserted. The Shadow knew that no one could have observed his arrival. He closed the door to the outer hall. He looked toward a corner of the living room.

An envelope was lying on a tall, clumsy taboret. The Shadow approached the spot and stopped. He knew that this was a trap. He made no effort to touch the taboret. Instead, he bent slowly forward. His hand, coming from beneath his cloak, drew an automatic.

A whispered laugh came from The Shadow’s lips. It was sneering challenge of contempt. It was a token of The Shadow’s sinister mockery to any hiding foe. Such was the purpose of The Shadow’s laugh; the result that it produced was unexpected.

The top of the taboret snapped open, in two portions. As the envelope fluttered to the floor, steel cylinders shot upward, like an opening spyglass. A rounded object, like a head of metal; a larger cylinder that served as body; then, in a twinkling, four armlike rods snapped forward.

Before The Shadow could swing clear, metal hands had caught his form in a viselike clutch. Pounding rods were swinging from the mechanical creature that had popped into view. The Shadow was fighting with a man of steel — a form that had no legs, for its body was anchored in the taboret.

Battling against four arms that plunged like pistons; double-actioned bars that swung like hammers also, The Shadow was in the clutch of a mechanical killer.

A murderer placed here by order of Charg! A robot that could fight with ten times the power of a human.

Such was the monstrous enemy that had caught The Shadow in its toils!