Charg, Monster

CHAPTER XIII. THE SHADOW CHOOSES

“UXTRY! Uxtry!”

The newsboy was shouting his cry near Times Square. Passers in the afternoon throng paused to eye the evening journals that he was waving at them.

“Uxtry! Third strangler victim found! Read all about it! Uxtry!”

The cry was echoed from a hundred feet away. Beyond that, another paper peddler bellowed forth the news. All the while, Broadway strollers, looking upward, were viewing the corroboration of this new sensation.

Lights that formed moving letters were running along the electric signs girding the Times Building. These were telling the populace that another mangled corpse had been discovered. The morning sensation had been the death of Loring Dyke. The afternoon news was a follow-up of that event.

Glaring globes of lights spelled traveling words for the throngs about Times Square. Like an illuminated headline, they spelled a message similar to the streamers of type that adorned front pages of the evening newspapers:

A tall passer tendered a coin to a newsboy. He received a newspaper in return and paused to eye the headlines. Folding the paper for the moment, this individual hailed a taxi. He gave a destination to the driver. Entering the cab, he opened the journal to read the details of this new death.

It was half past four in the afternoon. According to the newspaper, boys, playing in a vacant lot in the Bronx, had discovered a mangled body. This had occurred shortly before one o’clock, during the period between school sessions.

The boys had told a policeman. The body had been taken to the morgue. There, Parsons, a servant of Loring Dyke, had identified the shattered hulk as the body of his fellow servant, Talbot.

“Uxtry! Uxtry!”

The cry was ringing beneath the structure of the Sixth Avenue elevated as the cab rolled beneath. It was heard near Fifth Avenue. But when the cab pulled up on an obscure side street, the only token that remained of this new crime was the newspaper which still lay before the tall passenger.

Leaving the taxi, the rider became a pedestrian. His path became strangely obscure as he threaded his way along the narrow street. Though it was still daylight, he seemed to fade beneath the shadowy fronts of old buildings. At last, his course was lost.

A FIGURE showed in the dinginess of a gloomy courtyard. A door opened; the form entered a darkened corridor. Footsteps echoed; paused; ascended. Shrouding darkness — then the dim light of an empty office.

The hazy form was stooping at an outer door. Upon a grimy pane of glass above his shoulders were these letters:

The Shadow was on the inside of the door through which Rutledge Mann was accustomed to thrust his reports. An envelope crinkled between long-fingered hands. A sibilant laugh whispered through the decrepit room. Then the tall form arose, stepped toward the inner gloom of the office, and moved from view.

Again the figure in the courtyard; it seemed to glide from the spot. Once more, The Shadow’s course was untraceable. Though clad as a chance stroller in Manhattan; though traveling in the light of afternoon, this amazing personage still possessed his uncanny ability of fading into nothingness.

Half past five. A click in a darkened room. Bluish light appeared; beneath it, long white hands. The girasol sparkled its resplendence. The Shadow was in his sanctum. He opened the envelope from Mann.

Though the news of new murder had been on the street no longer than an hour, Rutledge Mann had already received a detailed report from Clyde Burke. The Classic reporter had been in Joe Cardona’s office when word had come in concerning a body at the morgue.

Joe had summoned Parsons. Clyde had accompanied the detective and the servant. He had been present at the identification. Clyde had made a report to Mann; then he had gone back to headquarters with Joe Cardona.

DURING the day, Rutledge Mann served as The Shadow’s contact with such agents as Clyde Burke.

Hence there were other reports in the envelope. One was from an agent named Harry Vincent; another from Cliff Marsland.

These active workers had been scouring the underworld. They had found no traces of crime that could be connected with the strangler’s deaths. They were awaiting further instructions from The Shadow.

Mann’s work was finished for the day. Beginning with six o’clock, The Shadow could reach his agents through another contact man: Burbank.

Hands stretched across the table. They drew a pair of earphones from the wall. The instruments moved into the nearer darkness. A voice clicked across the wire:

“Burbank speaking.”

“Report,” came The Shadow’s eerie whisper.

“Further report from Burke,” responded Burbank, in a quiet, methodical monotone. “Cardona has established a definite theory upon which he intends to act.”

“Details.”

“Talbot killed while leaving Dyke’s. Strangler overpowered him at front door. After murdering Dyke, the strangler carried Talbot’s body away.”

“Report received.”

A pause. Then came Burbank’s incoming voice:

“No further reports. All agents awaiting instructions.”

“Instructions will be given at six o’clock.”

The earphones clattered to the wall. A tiny bulb that had shown there went out automatically. A whispered laugh sounded through the sanctum.

The Shadow had already digested Cardona’s theory. He knew that the ace detective was far wide of the truth. The Shadow had established the mode of entry to Dyke’s laboratory — namely, by the dumbwaiter— and he knew that Talbot must have been an accomplice in the killing.

But The Shadow could divine much more. He knew that there were brains behind these crimes, intelligence that belonged to a master plotter, not to the actual murderer. The unknown schemer had scored another triumph.

Cleverly, the fiend had led Joe Cardona on a false track. Talbot had last been seen at Dyke’s. Found dead, far from the scene of the chemist’s murder, Talbot’s body had given Joe Cardona the chance to form a quick, but erroneous conclusion.

A master mind had ordered; his trick had deceived the law. Not only had he established Talbot as an innocent victim; he had made Joe Cardona credit the actual murderer with intelligence. The police would persist in a more drastic search for some powerful, brainy strangler. They would not look for a murderer who worked with merely mechanical promptitude — the type of killer that The Shadow sought.

Until the present — ever since last night — The Shadow had considered that a lull was due. He had picked Talbot as a problem in the hidden schemer’s plans. He had decided that new murder might be delayed until the master plotter had made sure that Talbot would not betray him as he had betrayed Loring Dyke.

But in the death of Talbot, The Shadow sensed new action. The way was clear for further crime. The fiend who had delivered murder was dependent only upon those who had served him well. Since his goal appeared to be the elimination of men who controlled the future of the supermotor, why should he wait too long to attain his final desire?

A SOFT laugh — grim, despite its ease of utterance. Such was The Shadow’s answer to the coming challenge. Paper and pen appeared upon the table. In tabulated form, The Shadow inscribed four names:

These were the four most vitally concerned. Shelburne, the go-between, Thorne, the magnate who was determined to gain the invention which he valued at five millions; Towson and Whilton, the surviving members of the committee which controlled the secret device.

One by one, the names faded; they had been written in The Shadow’s special ink. Then the hand rewrote the name of Shelburne; a soft laugh sounded as it faded. Side by side, The Shadow inscribed:

The space between the two was significant. It stood for Shelburne. He was between Thorne and Towson. The hand stretched forward and produced the earphones. The prompt voice sounded on the wire:

“Burbank speaking.”

“Instructions to Marsland,” ordered The Shadow, in a whispered, hissing tone. “He is to watch the home of Frederick Thorne. Report all activities there. Also” — a pause gave emphasis — “he is to keep exact tabulations on the arrival and departure of Shelburne.”

“Instructions received.”

“Instructions to Vincent. He is to watch the home of Bryce Towson. Report all activities there. Also” — again the pause — “he is to keep exact tabulations on the arrival and departure of Shelburne.”

“Instructions received.”

“Instructions to Burke. He is to remain in close touch with detective headquarters.”

“Instructions received.”

The earphones clattered as The Shadow replaced them on the wall. The hand picked up the pen. The sheet of paper lay blank. The names of Frederick Thorne and Bryce Towson had vanished.

Again, The Shadow wrote. The final name showed in vivid blue upon the white sheet:

In a sense, the old philanthropist stood isolated. Bryce Towson was custodian of the invention; Frederick Thorne, the man who sought it. While Shelburne still played his dual role as secretary for Towson and spy for Thorne, matters would remain the same so far as those three were concerned.

But Whilton was in the position which both Meldon Fallow and Loring Dyke had occupied in turn. To the world, he would be a man of greater consequence than either the slain inventor or the murdered chemist. But from the standpoint of a schemer seeking to eliminate those who controlled the supermotor, Herbert Whilton could well be regarded as the next in line.

Whilton must be watched. His future was important to The Shadow. Therefore, the master of darkness had taken that work as his own choice.

Herbert Whilton would be well guarded against the schemes of the unknown brain. The Shadow, himself, was to be protector of the old philanthropist!

A laugh sounded as the blue light clicked into nothingness. Weird, whispered mirth was the token of The Shadow’s choice!