Charg, Monster

CHAPTER IV. MURDER UNSOLVED

“A MURDER, Joe.”

The speaker was Inspector Timothy Klein. The police official was seated at his desk in headquarters.

Red-faced, with hair of iron gray, Klein was grave in expression as he spoke to the man who had just entered his office.

The entrant was a man of stocky build. His face, firm and swarthy, showed keenness and determination.

His steady eyes, which stared inquiringly toward Klein, were sharp and observant. This man was Detective Joe Cardona, ace of the New York force.

“The details came over the phone,” declared Klein, in answer to Cardona’s unspoken query. “The victim is a fellow named Meldon Fallow — an inventor — who lived in an apartment on Fifty-second Street. That’s where they found the body. Come along. We’re going up there.”

Inspector and detective left the office. The gloom of late afternoon was apparent when they reached the street. Entering a police car, they rode northward toward their destination. Their trip ended at the entrance of an old-fashioned apartment building on Fifty-second Street.

A uniformed policeman was at the door of the apartment house. He recognized the arrivals and motioned inward, as he gave them the preliminary information which they required.

“The third floor,” he said. “Apartment 3 H. Officer Loftus is up there, inspector.”

KLEIN and Cardona entered. The inspector seemed anxious to reach the third-floor apartment. The detective, however, was shrewdly observant as they made their way to the stairway. To Joe Cardona, every detail was important. He was studying the floor plan of the building as they proceeded upward.

They found three men clustered in a hallway, with the policeman— Loftus— standing by. The officer recognized the inspector. He saw Klein look at the group of men. He hastened to explain.

“This fellow” — he pointed to one — “is the janitor. The others are moving men. They came this afternoon to get Fallow’s furniture. The janitor brought them up here and unlocked the door of the apartment. That’s when they found the body.”

Klein turned toward a door marked 3 H. It was closed. Joe Cardona put in a word to the officer.

“You locked the door?” questioned the detective.

“Yes,” admitted Loftus. “Maybe I shouldn’t have; but it was locked when I got here. These fellows shut it after they saw the body. They were standing here when I came in; here’s the key the janitor gave me. After I saw the body— well, I figured it was best to lock the door again. I had to put in a call; and there wasn’t any use going back in with the dead man. He isn’t good to look at.”

There was a peculiar emphasis in the officer’s final words. Joe Cardona’s eyes narrowed as the detective watched Klein unlock the door with the key given him by Officer Loftus.

Shoulder to shoulder, inspector and detective entered the apartment of death. They stopped a few paces past the threshold. Their impression justified the policeman’s statement.

KLEIN and Cardona were standing in a small living room. The place was oddly furnished; chairs of varied pattern, small tables, bookcases and a couch formed the chief items of furniture. There was one object, however, upon which their gaze turned.

This was a desk in the far corner of the room. It was a one-sided affair, with a row of three wide drawers running from top to floor at the left side. Beside the desk were scattered papers, strewn on the floor; in front was the form that commanded full attention.

This was the body of Meldon Fallow. The inventor lay sprawled in a crumpled heap. His body was twisted in curious fashion. From the hips up it had assumed a corkscrew pose that terminated with head turned toward the door.

Neither Klein nor Cardona had ever seen a body more hideously bashed. Fallow’s clothing had been half-ripped away. His torso showed terrific bruises and long, bloody gashes. His chest had been caved by a powerful blow.

The man’s neck, gripped by some terrible hands, had not only been clutched in strangling fashion; it had been broken into the bargain— hence the crazy tilt of Fallow’s head.

In addition, the slayer must have driven sledge-hammer blows to the inventor’s face and skull. The dead man’s jaw was askew. His features were scarcely recognizable. His forehead showed the mark of a brutal, crushing stroke that could only have been delivered with some instrument of metal.

Inspector Klein, hardened though he was to the sight of death, stood gazing in fascinated horror. It was Joe Cardona who first freed himself from the terrible spell and began the investigation.

The detective went to the windows. He noted that they were locked. He stepped to an inner door and entered a small bedroom. A brief inspection showed no traces of an occupant; Cardona also found the windows locked.

Back in the living room, where Klein was still gazing at Fallow’s shattered form, Cardona looked among the papers beside the desk. He saw a letter; its heading bore the name of Morris Jackling, attorney. The text referred to patent royalties due Meldon Fallow.

Cardona went to the telephone. He called Jackling’s office. He found that the lawyer had not yet left.

Gruffly, Cardona stated that Fallow had been murdered. He asked the lawyer to come at once to the apartment.

KLEIN was looking at the windows which Cardona had examined. When the inspector had finished, the detective nodded. He could see that Klein’s examination substantiated his own.

“Not a chance that any one came through there,” declared Klein. “Locked and dusty. That’s the only way the murderer could have taken.”

The inspector pointed to the half-closed door. Cardona walked in that direction. With Klein, he examined the lock and found it untampered.

“Let’s hear your story,” said Cardona, to the janitor who was standing pale-faced in the hallway. “How and when did you find the body?”

“It was on account of the moving men,” stated the janitor, hoarsely. “I was downstairs, sir, when they came and told me they wanted the furniture. I knew it was going out. Mr. Fallow told me about it a couple of days ago.

“When I came up here, of course I knocked. I thought maybe Mr. Fallow might be in. When I didn’t hear him answer, I used the pass-key. Then I saw— well, I saw it.”

“And you men?”

Cardona’s question was put to the two moving men. One, a big fellow, acted as spokesman for the pair.

He thrust forward some folded papers.

“This is all we know about it,” the man stated. “We do movin’ for old Goggins, that runs a second-hand furniture place on Ninth Avenue. He always gives us the dockaments — so’s we can move out the stuff that he’s bought.

“Here’s our orders an’ directions; that there paper is signed by this guy that was killed. We showed ‘em to the janitor here, so he brought us up. We seen the body along when he did.”

Cardona nodded as he made a note of the address on the paper which bore the name of Ephriam Goggins, dealer in furniture. He noted the anxious expression on the moving man’s face. He looked toward Klein and nodded.

“Don’t you men be worried,” stated the inspector. “We’ll have to hold you for a while — as material witnesses — but after that you can go about your business.”

“You’ll let Goggins know what’s holdin’ us?” questioned the big man.

“Yes,” returned Klein. “We’ll see Goggins.”

“An’ what about the furniture?”

Klein smiled. He could see that the moving man had a one-track mind.

“The furniture,” stated the inspector, “will stay here for the present. After we have completed our investigation, Goggins can move it to his store — if he can prove that it is actually his property. Maybe he’ll have you move it after all. We’ll see.”

The talk of the furniture had stimulated Cardona. He went back into the apartment and Klein followed him. Joe looked about the room and shook his head. Then he began to open the desk drawers. He noticed that they were short and empty. He shoved them back in place.

LOOKING along the top of the desk, Cardona could find no scratches on the surface. The desk was heavy; its top had a peculiar style of decoration which divided it into six square sections. Stepping away, the detective compared the other furniture with the desk. He noted that no two pieces were similar.

Strolling to the door, Cardona spoke to the janitor. He questioned the man regarding Fallow’s habits. He found that the inventor had seldom received visitors; that his life in the apartment had been quiet and secluded.

“How long had he lived here?” Cardona questioned.

“A year,” stated the janitor. “His lease was up; that’s why he was moving.”

“Where to?”

“Some furnished apartment. That’s why he was selling the furniture.”

“He brought all this junk with him when he moved in here a year ago?”

“Not all, sir. About half of it. He was always buying and selling pieces of furniture. I think some came in a month ago — not less, anyway, because he gave his notice right after the time.”

Further questioning ended as a short, puffy man arrived from the stairway. He was accompanied by a policeman. He saw Cardona and put an eager question:

“You’re Detective Cardona?”

The sleuth nodded.

“I’m Morris Jackling,” stated the puffy man. “Came right over after you called. Terrible, terrible — this death of Fallow. Murdered, you say?”

Cardona pointed through the open door. Jackling paled and backed away. He stood puffing against the wall. Horror showed on his mild face.

It was fully half a minute before he could regain his composure. Cardona, studying the lawyer with experienced eye, could see that the shock was genuine.

“I called you,” said the detective, “because I found a letter of yours, addressed to Fallow. Can you tell me anything about the man?”

“In — in a minute,” gasped Jackling. Then, with an effort: “Yes. Fallow was an inventor. Scarcely a successful one. He received small royalties on various patents. I arranged the purchase for a device used in hosiery manufacture. Representing the purchaser, I used to pay Fallow his royalties.

“My method was to write him, telling him that a payment was due. Invariably, he came to my office. The letter that you saw was one which Fallow received yesterday. He promised to come to my office within a few days, to obtain his check.”

“He wrote you a reply?”

“No. He came to see me.”

“Where? At your office?”

“No. At my hotel — the Glania.”

“When?”

“Last night.”

An expression of keen interest showed upon Cardona’s face, as the detective heard the lawyer’s statement. Joe did not speak, however, for he saw that Jackling had more to say.

“It was at eleven o’clock,” declared the attorney. “My hotel is not far from here. I had just come in from the theater when the operator called to say that Mr. Fallow was in the lobby.

“I went down to see him. He was in good spirits. He said that his inventions were doing well; but he did not specify which ones. Fallow was always a secretive man, like most inventors.

“He said that he was on the way to his apartment. He added that he expected to move to better quarters. He talked with me about the Glania — asked how I liked the hotel — about its rates. That was all. Then he left.”

Cardona turned to Klein.

“Apparently,” he said to the inspector, “Mr. Jackling was the last person to see Fallow alive. We know that the murder must have occurred after eleven o’clock last night.”

A new arrival appeared. It was the police surgeon.

WHILE the others waited in the hallway, Klein and Cardona accompanied the physician into the apartment. The surgeon chewed his lips and shook his head as he viewed the body. He began his examination; when he finished, he arose with a serious expression on his face.

“The man has been dead for hours,” announced the surgeon. “Probably since midnight. His killer must have been a man of tremendous physique.

“Think of it! Hands that could strangle and break a man’s neck! Even equipped with an instrument of metal, the hand that smashed that skull must have possessed a fierce driving force.

“The victim was literally pounded to death. I have never before seen evidence of such fiendishness. The killer must be a brute — such a brute that one could not call him human.”

Cardona nodded grimly. The surgeon’s words were graphic. A strangler — a mangler — such must be the nature of Meldon Fallow’s slayer. With his level-headedness, the ace-detective possessed a practical imagination which had often served him well.

He was picturing the slayer now. A huge man, with powerful hands: only such could have handled Meldon Fallow with the fury that was evidenced. Somewhere in New York, a fiend was at large.

Could the killer have had purpose? As yet, Cardona did not know. Prompt investigation was essential.

There were threads to follow; facts to be learned. Yet these, Cardona felt, might prove barren.

The ace detective had a hunch that a maniac might be responsible. Such brutality as the killer had shown could have gained nothing. Distinctly, it served to the murderer’s disadvantage; for it marked him as a fierce brute who could be singled out from men of lesser strength.

“What about it, Joe?”

Klein’s question came to the detective’s ears as Cardona was still staring at the body. Joe’s reply was slow and steady.

“Let the newspapers have it,” stated the detective. “Get the dragnet working. Let’s hope that the murderer is still in New York. When we round him up, we’ll know him.”

So thought Joe Cardona. Yet in his decision, the ace had wandered far from the truth. The answer had been voiced, unwittingly, by the police surgeon. The physician had said that the murderer could not be called human. That statement held a meaning which even its author had not realized.

For the law was dealing with a superplotter — a master whose ways of murder stood unparalleled. The solution to Meldon Fallow’s death lay within Cardona’s reach; yet the ace detective did not realize it.

Evidence was here; remarkable evidence that Joe Cardona had failed to find. The ace had passed it by; it would remain, uncovered.

Charg had planned well; and the only one who might have burrowed to his secret had traveled far from New York. The truth of Fallow’s death was to remain unknown until the return of The Shadow.

Murder unsolved! Such was the death of Meldon Fallow. Such was the beginning of new and unequaled crime — the first stroke from the hand of Charg.

From his abode, Charg had acted. From that same hidden lair, he would launch new murder. The path of evil would lie clear, until The Shadow should demand a reckoning!