Charg, Monster

CHAPTER XIX. THE MEETING

DAWN and day had passed. The jarring imitation chimes of an advertising clock were booming the hour of seven above the incessant roar at Times Square. Darkness was again settling upon Manhattan.

Darkness! It existed in total form within the shrouded walls of The Shadow’s sanctum. That hidden room — windowless — seemed like a tomb. A click brought bluish light to a solitary corner; but beyond that sphere, the darkness still persisted.

With a single hour remaining before his proxy appointment with Charg, The Shadow had come here to receive new reports from his agents. Burbank’s voice clicked as The Shadow used the earphones.

The Shadow’s hands were inscribing notes as they came over the wire. It was a report from Harry Vincent — an important message at this late hour. Harry, watching at Towson’s, had seen Daper arrive with a truck. The man had carried a radio cabinet into Towson’s house.

Here was evidence of another planted killer! The Shadow’s laugh was solemn as the writing faded from the paper. Daper had reported to Charg last night. In all probability, he had received new instructions!

Presumably, The Shadow had been eliminated. Was Charg proceeding with another murder?

The Shadow’s hand paused. Two duties lay ahead; the first was to go promptly to Towson’s; the second to keep Laffan’s appointment with Charg. The decision came as The Shadow, inscribing his thoughts, wrote these words:

The Shadow had struck an important point. He knew that a robot had been planted at Meldon Fallow’s long before the inventor’s death. Why had the machine not acted before the night that it had killed? Only because Charg’s murderers must be controlled — if necessary — by some simple clockwork like an alarm.

Here was evidence, from Vincent, that a killer was concealed at Towson’s. That would mean removal.

Daper had brought the cabinet alone; he would need Laffan to remove it. Hence the hidden robot must be under a control that would not let it act too soon.

Certainly, Charg would have instructions for Laffan. That eight o’clock appointment was the important duty for The Shadow. The hands reached for the earphones. The Shadow gained final reports.

Bryce Towson was at home; Harry Vincent had mentioned that fact. Cliff Marsland’s report told that Frederick Thorne had gone out at half past six. Neither Harry nor Cliff had word of Shelburne.

The light clicked out. The Shadow departed from his sanctum. His presence, when next manifested, appeared within a room of death. The Shadow, with cloak and hat, was in the apartment where Laffan’s body lay.

STOOPING above the crook’s dead form, The Shadow seemed a monster of the night. Cloak dropped; hat fell back. The glow of the floor lamp revealed two faces. One was the dead visage of Laffan; the other, the countenance of The Shadow.

It was a weird sight. The Shadow’s face, above Laffan’s, looked like the mirrored reflection of the dead man’s countenance! An expert at the art of disguise, The Shadow had made himself resemble Laffan.

He had worked from memory; here, in this silent room, he was adding the finishing touches. Five minutes passed. The Shadow’s bared fingers were through with their task. Cloak slid upward; hat tilted forward.

With a soft laugh, The Shadow glided out into the hall.

Ten minutes of eight. A figure stepped from a coupe on a side street near Tenth Avenue. The Shadow, doubling for Jerry Laffan, took up a striding pace along the block. He reached the front of the old apartment house. He entered. A key appeared in his hand. The Shadow had found this key tonight, in Laffan’s pocket.

Shrewdly, The Shadow picked the correct apartment. This was guesswork, for Harry Vincent had followed Daper only to the outer door. The key fitted; The Shadow knew his choice was right. He entered the living room.

A flashlight was at work. It showed the short passage. The Shadow reached that spot. His light showed grimy marks upon the closet door. The Shadow opened the barrier. Again — this time by closer study — he observed traces of fingers by a hook upon the wall.

The Shadow worked with the hook. It twisted. He found it loose. A soft laugh; then The Shadow pressed the hook three times. “Always three — ” such were the words that Laffan had spoken.

The elevator rumbled. The wall dropped away. The Shadow entered the lift and descended. At the bottom, he found the door with the button beside it. There was no utterance of a laugh. The Shadow was playing the part of Jerry Laffan.

Three times, his hand pressed the button. The door slid upward. The Shadow entered the lair of Charg.

He saw the screen ahead and advanced. The light clicked on; The Shadow glimpsed the vague outline of the hidden master.

“WHO are you, intruder?” came the rasp.

“I am Jerry Laffan,” responded The Shadow, in a perfect imitation of the dead man’s voice. “I am the servant of Charg.”

“Your token?”

“Three.”

“Report.”

“The enemy is dead. I left his body where it lay.”

In the pause which followed, The Shadow stood steady. He was ready for any emergency; part of his readiness lay in his apparent unpreparedness.

“Tonight,” came Charg’s harsh voice, “you will meet Bart Daper at the appointed spot. The hour is ten. That is all; further word will come from him. Are my instructions plain?”

“Yes.”

“Charg has commanded.”

“When Charg commands,” The Shadow repeated, from memory, “his servants obey.”

“Then go,” came the words of Charg. “To linger with Charg means death.”

The Shadow’s eyes saw the hand move to the switch. A momentary pause, while the false Jerry Laffan caught the gleam of the jeweled turban. Then The Shadow turned.

The door was moving upward. There was just time to leave. But The Shadow made no forward leap.

His hand had gone beneath the coat that he was wearing. As the door paused at its peak, The Shadow made a quick, amazing whirl. With a mighty spring, he seized the screen and sent it clattering across the floor, just as the outer door dropped into place.

In The Shadow’s hand was an automatic, aimed squarely between the eyes of a seated figure — Charg.

Dark-skinned as a Hindu, with arms close in front of his body, the master of murder glared from beneath his jeweled turban. His brown eyes, sparkling in the light, were staring straight at the false Jerry Laffan.

Charg was motionless. There was not a flicker of his eyelids. Enthroned upon a heavy platform beneath a niche in the wall, this controller of death seemed transfixed by The Shadow’s gaze. He was cross-legged on his pedestal; his quaint Oriental costume hung unmoving from his shoulders.

The Shadow’s hand relaxed. An odd laugh sounded from the lips that looked like Jerry Laffan’s. The Shadow stepped forward. He placed his hands upon Charg; with a thrust, he sent the figure sprawling backward behind the pedestal. Yanking open the top of the big box that had served Charg as a throne, The Shadow stared at what he saw within.

Phonograph disks, arranged on separate stacks. Machinery; a telephonic hook-up. These were the contents of the bulky pedestal. Staring beyond, The Shadow again surveyed the form that he had cast from its pedestal. The arms of Charg had swung at an odd angle. Wires were running from the figure to the box.

The Shadow had uncovered an amazing fact. Charg’s killers had been robots — mechanical men that did unrelenting work. But they had needed human agents: Daper, Laffan, Quinton, to place them where they could kill.

Those humans had taken orders from Charg. They had brought him their reports. The had feared him as their terrible master. But they had never suspected the strange truth.

Charg, the fiend, was a mechanical hook-up. The master of humans was no more alive than were the metal killers whom his minions placed. Charg, whom The Shadow alone had dared to face, was himself a robot!

The Shadow had gained his meeting with Charg, only to learn this incredible fact. Instead of a living foe to face, The Shadow had found a waxwork figure.

And now The Shadow stood within the lair of Charg. A living being in the den of a mechanical monster, he must face the fate that awaited those who lingered with Charg!