The Killer

CHAPTER VI MULLRICK MOVES

IT was late the next afternoon when Harland Mullrick entered his apartment after a trip downtown. Mullrick immediately encountered Pascual. The Mexican servant was standing just beyond the entry, staring toward the door as Mullrick entered.

“What’s the matter, Pascual?” questioned Mullrick, in Spanish.

“Things are not right, master,” returned Pascual, in his native tongue. “I am worried since last night.”

“Forget it, Pascual,” ordered Mullrick. “So long as you are alert, all will be well.”

The Mexican shook his head. He pointed toward the door; his accusing finger indicated the knob.

“There was someone there last night, master,” he informed. “Someone — beyond that door”

“Of course,” laughed Mullrick. “Senor Herston went out. He was in the corridor. He may have decided to return; then changed his mind. You told me all this before I went out this morning.”

“The window also, senor,” insisted the servant, pointing to the other end of the room. “I heard a noise there, afterward—”

“But you saw no one,” interposed Mullrick. “You mentioned those facts also. Come, Pascual. Until you have seen some actual person hereabouts, do not worry about mere noises.”

With this remark, Mullrick strode to the window. He unlocked it and raised the sash. As Pascual peered forth suspiciously, Mullrick indicated the wall.

Save for a narrow, projecting cornice just below the window, and a similar projection above, there was no possible place for a foothold. The width of each ornamental projection was scarcely more than three inches.

Mullrick closed the window. He seemed satisfied. Pascual began to imbibe his master’s confidence.

The window had a thick sill. Just within was a radiator, with a flat metal top that came on a level with the sill, forming a useful ledge. Mullrick rested one elbow atop the radiator, and stared thoughtfully from the window. He heard a rap at the door. He turned to see Pascual answering the call.

MULLRICK smiled as he observed the visitors who entered. Two men were carrying a radio cabinet. One came backing across the floor; the other, a stolid laborer, was facing forward.

As they reached a corner near the window, they set down their burden. The smaller man dropped to the floor and began to attach the radio.

“This is prompt service,” commented Mullrick. “You told me you would have the set delivered by half past five. Where is the young man who called this morning and offered to place this radio on approval?”

The big, stupid man shook his head. He pointed to the other who had entered with him.

“Ask him,” said the big man. “I ain’t got nothin’ to do with it. He just asked me to help him lug the radio upstairs. I was out on the street, lookin’ for somethin’ to do.”

Mullrick turned to the man who was attaching the set. The visitor’s back was turned, but the man had heard the question. He replied, in a quiet voice, without turning his head from his work.

“It was the salesman who called this morning,” he said. “I am the installation man. Sign this approval receipt.”

Without turning away from his work, the installer whisked a card from his pocket and held it up over his shoulder. Mullrick signed the card and placed it in the ready hand that came up for it. He walked away from the window.

The radio installer, with his back constantly toward the interior of the room, placed some tools upon the flat-topped radiator. He began to test the set.

As he listened to its tones, he moved his head slightly to note whether or not Mullrick was still watching him. Observing that Mullrick was not, the man placed a little tool kit upon the radiator top. From the kit projected a wire.

The radio man let his hand slide along the space between window sill and radiator. His fingers encountered a projecting wire.

The presence of that wire explained why Pascual had heard a sound last night. Someone, working from outside, had drilled a tiny hole straight through the window ledge, underneath. Through that hole the wire had been introduced!

With a deft movement, the radio installer hooked his own wire to the one that came from beneath the sill. He opened the tool kit and took out a small instrument which was attached to the wire. He let this object slip down in back of the radiator, paying out the thin wire to prevent a final jolt.

The instrument thus introduced was the microphone of a dictograph. While apparently doing no more than make a choice of tools, the radio installer had completed his secret work. He swung back to the radio, gave it a final test, then picked up his tools and walked across the living room.

“All installed,” he remarked, as he passed Mullrick. “Your guarantee card is on the cabinet.”

Mullrick looked up from his newspaper, in time, only, to catch another glimpse of the fellow’s back. He saw the installer walk out through the door. Then the soft tones of the radio attracted his attention. He went to the cabinet and busied himself with the dials.

The big man who had helped carry the radio set had gone out while the installer was at work. Harland Mullrick thought no more of the matter. The fact that he had not caught a single glimpse of the radio installer’s face seemed a very trivial matter indeed.

THE man who had left the apartment, however, performed certain actions which would have interested Harland Mullrick. Carrying his tool kit, he went to the elevator, but he took the car up instead of down. On the corridor above, he chose the door marked 5H; the apartment directly above Mullrick’s. Here he went to an inner room. He sat at a table and worked with an apparatus that lay before him. The tones of the radio in Mullrick’s apartment became plainly audible.

The wire that went under the window ledge connected here! Cleverly attached to the brick surface of the outer wall, it formed a direct hook-up with this apartment above!

Only one person could have so neatly completed such an arrangement — The Shadow! It was he that Pascual had heard leaving the window. Silent though The Shadow was, the act of drilling had been slightly apparent to the keen Mexican servant!

Who was the man who had made the final attachment? The answer came when the false radio installer turned off the dictograph connection and picked up a set of ear phones. As a light glimmered on a panel, he announced his identity by telephone.

“Burbank speaking.”

From the ear phones came a sinister whisper:

“Report.”

“Delivered set which Vincent placed on approval,” announced Burbank. “Dictograph connection completed.”

“Report received,” came the answer. “New instructions.”

“Ready.”

“Vincent to watch front of apartment. Trail Mullrick when he comes out.”

“Instructions received,” responded Burbank, in quiet answer to The Shadow’s amazing whisper.

Burbank, contact agent for The Shadow, was on the job. With dictograph handy, with a line established to The Shadow’s sanctum, with his telephone number given to The Shadow’s agents, he represented the hidden center of the network which The Shadow had created to cover Harland Mullrick.

IN the hour that followed, Burbank, listening at the dictophone, gained one piece of information which he forwarded to The Shadow. Harland Mullrick had gone out to dinner. Before he had left, he had told Pascual that he expected to be back at eight o’clock; that if anyone called by telephone to tell them to make another call at that hour.

An odd feature of Burbank’s report was that Mullrick’s brief conversation with Pascual, held in mingled Spanish and English, had not been fully understood by Burbank. Nevertheless, the quiet contact agent had repeated every syllable exactly as he had heard it. The Shadow comprehended.

Shortly after eight o’clock, Burbank forwarded two new reports. One was Harry Vincent’s; the other was Burbank’s own. Harry had watched Mullrick at dinner in a restaurant near the Belisarius Arms; he had followed the man back to the apartment building.

Burbank, at the dictograph, had heard Mullrick reenter his apartment and question Pascual regarding telephone calls. None had been received. It was obvious that Mullrick intended to wait until such a call came through.

Fifteen minutes later, Burbank, listening at the dictograph, heard the telephone bell ring in Mullrick’s apartment. A moment afterward, Burbank sensed that someone was standing close behind him. He knew that The Shadow had arrived. Raising one hand, the capable contact man spoke quietly.

“The call is coming through,” he said. “I am getting it.”

Something swished in the darkness. The Shadow had gone. Burbank, as he listened, felt a sudden gust of breeze. He knew where The Shadow had gone. The master of darkness had raised a window of this upper apartment. He was going down the wall to peer into Mullrick’s place. He would see what happened there while Burbank heard!

IN his apartment, Mullrick was at the telephone in the living room. Pascual, knowing that this call was important, was standing stolidly by the entry door. The servant suspected that someone might be listening there. Had The Shadow come by that route tonight, he would have encountered the watchful Mexican. The Shadow, however, was watching from without.

He could see Mullrick’s form. He could not, however, observe the tall man’s face, for Mullrick, as he telephoned, had his back turned toward the window.

“Hello?” Mullrick’s tone was anxious. “Ah, yes… This is Mr. Mullrick… You received my letter?… Good… I would not give the details by letter… You will see me, you say… Tonight… Yes, I can come to meet you… Yes…”

Mullrick wrote some words upon the surface of a telephone pad. He nodded as he did so. He was listening to the arrangement which the other was proposing.

“I shall meet you there,” he said. “Nine o’clock… I shall be waiting… You are coming in a cab… Yes, I can join you when the driver signals with the horn… Then to your apartment to discuss matters…”

Mechanically, Mullrick inscribed another notation. He listened a few moments longer, then added a final remark.

“If something should prevent me from being at the meeting place, do not wait more than four or five minutes. You can call me here again, tomorrow, in case we should miss connections… Yes; I shall surely see you… Tonight, if possible…”

Mullrick arose from the telephone. He tore the slip of paper from the pad.

He held it close before his eyes, and slowly read its contents. He tore it to tiny fragments, then opened the window by the telephone table and tossed the particles of paper into the breeze.

“Adios, papel blanco,” he said. “Goodby, white paper with lost information. Pascual” — Mullrick turned to the Mexican and broke loose in Spanish — “you know the story of the spider and the fly? How the fly walks into the spider’s parlor — and remains?”

Pascual nodded.

“Sometimes,” added Mullrick, “it is the fly himself who provides the parlor. Funny, eh, Pascual? Then the spider must be wise. Because, Pascual, the fly may be wise, also.”

Mullrick spent a few minutes in thought. Then, a wily gleam on his face, he again went to the telephone. He called a number and recognized the voice of Jerry Herston.

“Hello, Jerry,” he said. “I want to see you tonight… No, not there… Suppose I meet you… Yes, that’s a good place… About nine o’clock… Listen, Jerry; make it ten minutes before nine… If I’m not there right on the minute, wait — as long as necessary… Yes… But let your watch stop with you. Understand? Ten minutes of nine is when we meet…”

Hanging up the receiver, Harland Mullrick swung to Pascual. He called for his hat and coat. Donning the garments, he strode from the apartment.

No hidden eyes were watching Harland Mullrick now. The Shadow had departed from his place of observation at the window. Only one person remained to pick up Harland Mullrick’s trail. That was Harry Vincent, out in front of the apartment house

As Harland Mullrick came into Harry’s view, he threw rapid glances in both directions. He seemed to be suspicious of observant eyes, even though he did not see the man who was watching him.

Sauntering along the street, Mullrick leisurely entered a drug store. He went into an alcove. Harry, entering behind him, noted that Mullrick did not emerge. The Shadow’s agent sauntered by the spot where Mullrick had gone. An exclamation of ire came from Harry’s lips.

The alcove had a side door which opened on a little alley. Harland Mullrick had chosen it for a quick exit. The man whom Harry had been set to watch had cleverly eluded the agent who had taken up his trail!