Hidden Death

CHAPTER VI DEATH UNEXPLAINED

STANDING in the doorway of the study, Detective Sergeant Mayhew gazed quickly about the room in search of an unknown enemy.

There was murder here — but where was the man who had committed the crime? Mayhew spied the open window. Even as he thought of it as an avenue for escape, he heard the strident treble of a whistle from the courtyard beneath.

Then came a banging at the outer door of the apartment. Mayhew hurried in that direction. A plainclothes man entered.

“Two patrolmen coming up,” he explained. “I was out front. Heard your whistle. What’s happened?”

“Stay right here,” ordered Mayhew. “Watch this door. There’s been a murder!”

He rushed into the study and hastened to the window. He leaned across the sill, and gazed downward into the glare of a powerful electric lantern.

Mayhew’s hands pressed against metal hooks, and he saw a collapsible ladder hanging beneath him.

“Hey — Mayhew!”

It was Cardona’s voice from the courtyard. Detective Sergeant Mayhew shouted in response.

“Any one come down this way?”

“No,” cried Cardona. “I’ve been here five minutes. Thought I saw something that looked like a ladder up on the wall. Kept the glimmer off it. Was there a shot?”

“Yes!” shouted Mayhew. “The man must still be here! I have help!”

“We’ll cover from down here,” answered Cardona.

Mayhew slipped back into the room. He hastened to find the man who was guarding the door.

“Stay posted here,” said Mayhew grimly. “There’s a dead man in the other room. The killer couldn’t have gotten out by the window. I’ll look for him. Send the patrolmen in when I call.”

In the study, Mayhew looked about him. There was no place where a man could hide. It was impossible for the second man to have escaped by the window.

Yet there must have been a slayer, for there, almost at Mayhew’s feet, lay the dead man, shot through the heart.

A flashlight lay on the floor beside him. The butt of a gun projected from his pocket.

Mayhew’s bewilderment ended as he thought of the little bedroom. Perhaps the killer was there!

He could have reached it in ample time before the outer door was opened. Unless he had removed a grating from the window of the bedroom, the man must still be there.

Mayhew went to the door of the outer room and switched out the study lights. The patrolmen had arrived.

Mayhew beckoned to them, with his revolver as he drew a flashlight from his pocket. He indicated the door of the bedroom.

“One man here,” he ordered. “Another at the door of the bedroom, there. I’m going in!”

Grimly, the uniformed men took their positions. Mayhew, known as one of the most daring of detectives, handed his flashlight to the patrolman beside him, and carefully turned the knob of the door.

“Have your gun ready,” he whispered. “I’ve turned the knob. Give me the light.”

Crouching, Mayhew pressed the door with his shoulder. As it opened slowly inward, Mayhew turned the torch to reveal the nearest corner of the room.

He opened the door more fully. No one was visible.

With a quick thrust, Mayhew pushed the door entirely open and strode into the room. As the detective sergeant advanced, something shot upward from the floor.

From the blackness in the foreground, a hand caught Mayhew’s wrist.

Upward went Mayhew, lifted by the powerful strength of a man who had materialized from nothingness! The detective was helpless in the toils of an amazing hold that twisted his body sidewise and spun it back toward the door.

THE electric torch dropped to the floor. Mayhew’s finger pressed the trigger of his revolver, but the shot drove itself harmlessly into the wall.

Then the detective lost his hold upon the gun.

The suddenness of Mayhew’s Waterloo had left the nearest patrolman completely off his guard. The sound of the revolver shot awoke him to action.

He leaped forward, and as he did so, Mayhew’s form was precipitated against him with terrific force. The patrolman was hurled to the floor by the impact.

The policeman at the door of the outer room could only see a mass of writhing figures. From them arose a vague form that swept across the room in the direction of the window.

It was lost in darkness the moment that it passed the range of light from the outer room, but the officer leaped after it, firing wildly as he went.

The blundering attacker was easy game for The Shadow. As the policeman dashed into the darkness, two quick hands grasped him by the ankles.

His shots ended as he plunged headforemost along the floor, his revolver flying out ahead of him.

Cool and cunning, The Shadow had outguessed his antagonists. There remained but one more — the plainclothes man at the outer door.

He, too, was playing into the hands of The Shadow. Knowing that the door of the inner room must be passed before the outer door was reached, the detective rushed to reinforce his comrades.

As he came to the door of the inner room, he stopped short and peered into the darkness. His leveled automatic was in his hand.

An arm swept downward from the wall beside him. There was a sharp clash as The Shadow’s automatic struck the gun from the man’s hand.

Before he realized that he was disarmed, the man at the door was caught in that powerful clutch. A forearm jolted against the back of his neck.

His body turned a sudden somersault, and he struck the floor flat on his back.

A tall, black form stood silhouetted in the doorway. A low, jibing laugh came from unseen lips.

As Mayhew, groping on hands and knees in the darkness, found the patrolman’s revolver, the man in the doorway seemed to fall away into the outer room. He was gone before Mayhew’s shots could take effect.

The detective sergeant started in pursuit. The others, recovering from their daze, were seeking their weapons. They were too late to be of any use.

Only Mayhew was able to make the chase, yet even he was not quick enough. When he reached the door of the inner room, he fired futilely at a figure that was leaving the apartment.

Running to the hall, he caught a fleeting glimpse of a black form at the head of the stairway. Mayhew emptied his gun in that direction. He damaged nothing but the wall.

At the head of the stairs, Mayhew shouted into the depths below, but received no answering call.

While he was trying vainly to head off the escaping man, the elevator door opened and Joe Cardona stepped from the car.

Excitedly, Mayhew told what had happened. Cardona grimly drew him into the elevator, and ordered the operator to make a quick drop to the ground floor.

They found the clerk at the door of the elevator. He had heard Mayhew’s shouts, and had been ringing the bell.

Cardona started across the lobby. The revolving door was turning. A plainclothes man was coming in. The fellow stopped, nonplused, as he saw the detective.

“I told you to watch out front!” cried Cardona angrily.

“You told me” — the man was stammering in bewilderment — “you told me that five minutes ago. But just now — when you came back outside — just a minute ago—”

“Come!” ordered Cardona.

He rushed through the revolving door, and reached the sidewalk. He stared in both directions along the lighted street.

There was not a soul in sight. Cardona turned to the detective.

“What do you mean?” he questioned. “You say I came outside? Just now?”

“Yes,” replied the man. “I thought it was you — it sounded like your voice. I heard you say: ‘Hurry in! Hurry! We need you!’ Then I came in through the door.”

“O.K., get going!” ordered Cardona. “Scour the place! Look everywhere! Don’t let that fellow get away!”

LEAVING his subordinates to take up the hopeless search, Cardona went back into the lobby. There he encountered the patrolmen who had been with Mayhew.

They had come down the stairway. Cardona dispatched them to join in the search. Moodily, he rode up in the elevator.

He found the plainclothes man standing in the study near the window. The fellow had scarcely recovered from the swift and powerful attack which had overcome him.

The lights were on, and Cardona surveyed the body of the slain man. He noted how similar its position was to that of Silas Harshaw. Two men killed — on the same spot!

Cardona went to the window, and called down to the courtyard. Two of his men were on duty there.

They shouted up to say that no one had attempted to escape by the ladder. A head appeared from the window of the room below. Another of Cardona’s men was there.

He informed the detective that he had found a large suitcase — evidently the object which had contained the equipment of the collapsible ladder.

Cardona left the window, and again studied the victim. Shot through the heart, like Silas Mayhew.

The man’s face was well formed; even in death it carried a determined look. Cardona saw no resemblance to any of the many criminals whom he knew.

Could this be the burglar who had been anticipated? If so, who was the killer? Had two men entered here and quarreled? That was unlikely.

Some one must have managed to enter this place, in spite of Mayhew’s presence. Cardona chewed his lips as his mind reverted to the name that he could not resist — The Shadow!

Was he the man who had escaped? The circumstances did not fit. The Shadow was a man who killed only when he felt that justice demanded it.

Somehow, Cardona felt that if The Shadow had been here, he would have captured this man, rather than have slain him.

Turning to the plainclothes man, Cardona questioned him about the fight. The man was unable to give a description of his assailant.

He had been struck down in the dark — that was all he could remember.

The odds had been four to one. Yet from the story, Cardona learned that the suspected killer had escaped without firing a single shot, although the minions of the law had blazed at him in vain.

That savored of The Shadow — the strange, mysterious man who had no quarrel with the police, but who battled crooks and defeated them on their own ground rather than operate by accepted police methods.

The Shadow! The very name was taboo, now, so far as Cardona was concerned. The report must label the escaping man as an unknown killer.

That would be the logical description, but if it had been The Shadow, why had he acted in such an amazing manner?

He had used a gun to kill an enemy. He had not resorted to the same device in order to escape. It did not seem consistent — unless one recognized The Shadow.

The sight of the dead man on the floor perplexed Cardona. He began to wonder. Perhaps, at last, the conditions had been reversed.

Given two men, one waiting in the room, the other entering by the window — which would be The Shadow? The man in the room, Cardona supposed.

This man on the floor had been facing the window. He could have been shot down by some one who had entered by the window.

Could this be The Shadow?

Mayhew entered. Cardona began to question the detective sergeant. Mayhew’s story was of little help.

When he had entered the bedroom, he had been attacked in the dark. He had pursued a man, and had caught but a few meager glimpses of him.

The Shadow was elusive, Cardona knew, but The Shadow did not often resort to flight.

Doggedly, Cardona began a search of the premises in hopes of uncovering some new clew. The task was a vain one. He had sought to capture an expected burglar.

He had succeeded in effecting such a capture, but it failed to explain the mystery. The man on the floor of Silas Harshaw’s study could never tell whatever he might have known.

A third death. Was this one, too, intended? That was a riddle that perplexed Joe Cardona as he looked down at the face of the dead man.