Circle of Death

CHAPTER VII AGAIN THE CIRCLE

MAURICE BEWKEL had finished dinner. Strolling through the spacious lobby of the Merrimac Club, he paused at the cigar stand and purchased a perfecto. Lighting the cigar, he left the club by the main door.

Bewkel presented a dignified appearance as he strolled up Fifth Avenue. The gray-haired man carried his gold-headed cane in easy swinging fashion. His face wore a pleased expression. A man of big business affairs, Bewkel had confidence in his own decisions.

Turning a corner, Bewkel, as he started westward, decided to continue on his walk. Taxicabs were available, but he did not choose to hail one. The lights of the Times Square area formed a glow ahead as Bewkel strolled along the side street.

This was a one-way thoroughfare, with eastward traffic. A taxicab came hurtling along; a young man, staring from the window, caught sight of Maurice Bewkel striding past in the opposite direction. He called to the driver and the cab came to a stop.

The young man alighted. It was Wilton Byres. The secretary, though crafty of expression, appeared a trifle pale. He paid the driver and started along the sidewalk in the direction that Maurice Bewkel had taken. The gray-haired man was nearing the next corner. He was well ahead of Byres.

Crossing the avenue, Bewkel passed a store located on the corner. A handful of people were looking in the window, watching a man who was demonstrating the merits of a new safety razor. Bewkel glanced toward the window, then kept on.

The demonstrator, looking from the window as he worked, caught a full view of Bewkel’s face. He snapped open the razor, removed its blade for the benefit of the onlookers, and placed the blade in a box that was on a little stand.

Moving the stand a trifle, he pressed his finger against a small switch that was beneath it. Not a single onlooker caught the action. Maurice Bewkel, in particular, had passed from view. Again looking from the window, the demonstrator gave occasional glances from a small angle which was at the side. Through this, he could catch a glimpse of a distant sign with white lights at its corners and along its borders.

Wilton Byres passed. The young man who worked as secretary for Felix Tressler was gaining as he followed Maurice Bewkel’s footsteps. He did not notice the window demonstrator; nor did the man glance at him.

GREEN lights! They appeared as if by magic upon the corners of the huge electric sign. The window demonstrator saw them and a faint smile appeared upon his lips as he turned to pick out another blade for the safety razor.

Other eyes saw those lights. A Chinatown bus barker, stationed at a corner a few blocks away, was glancing upward as he chattered, his gaze upon the blazing corners that showed green. A pushcart peddler, wheeling his wares homeward along a side street, was turning sly glances backward toward the signal light.

Panhandlers, of indiscriminate appearance, were noting that token that blazed against the sky. At the Hotel Zenith, the ever-busy doorman was alert.

Taxi-driver — soft-drink seller — they were but others in the scattered group of watchers. While crowds moved by unnoticing, the minions of the circle of death were following the call that came to them.

Blink — blink — blink — a pause. Then three new blinks from the border lights. These were the flashes that the various watchers had awaited. They told the location where the quarry was located. Roving agents of the death circle began their shambling courses toward spots where they could head off the progress of Maurice Bewkel.

A quick blink; a rapid one. These were another signal. Bewkel had passed a restaurant further along the block. The cashier by the window had sent a signal by pressing a button beneath the cash register.

The uniformed doorman at the Hotel Zenith became alert. He knew the meaning of this signal. Maurice Bewkel had reached a corner. If he took one turn, his course would bring him in this direction. For a moment, the doorman forgot his job. He was staring from the center of the sidewalk as a tall man jostled against him.

“Pardon me, sir.” The doorman was obsequious. “Do you want a taxi, sir?”

“Yes,” growled the man. “What are you doing? Star gazing? I thought you worked for this hotel.”

Passers by laughed at the incident. The doorman ushered the guest into a cab. He turned back toward the hotel; as he reached the wall, he again gazed toward the sign. It blinked three times. The doorman smiled. The quarry had not taken the turn toward the Hotel Zenith.

A sandwich-board man changed his pace as he spied the blinking lights. He strolled away from the direction of the hotel. Like the doorman, he would not be needed. Yet both kept making occasional glimpses toward the huge electric sign.

The doorman glanced about him, to make sure that no one was observing his actions. Satisfied that such was the case, he kept on with his occasional stares. Like other members of this strange circle, he was interested in the outcome.

Maurice Bewkel, unaware that his course was under observation, was pursuing his way along a new side street. Wilton Byres had lost him temporarily at a corner; now the young man was again on Bewkel’s trail.

They were not far from the center of the danger zone. Bewkel, totally unsuspecting of danger, was well occupied with his thoughts. He was approaching a spot where workmen had drilled a hole in the sidewalk. A night shift was at work, for in Manhattan such repairs were necessarily hurried.

A FOREMAN was giving orders to the workmen. He was standing by the electric motor attached to the drills. His eyes, which had been gazing upward, turned along the street. The foreman saw Maurice Bewkel approaching, his gold-headed cane under his arm.

The foreman rested one hand upon the motor. With the other, he pointed to a grating which was covered with loose boards. As he pressed his hand against a small switch on the side of the motor, he gave this order:

“Move those boards over in here. Shove the barriers in further. There’s plenty of space there for people to get by.”

The workmen obeyed. The foreman snapped them into more rapid action. He threw a quick glance upward. The lights along the border were blinking. The foreman’s signal had been caught, telling that the prey was at this spot. The corner still glowed green.

A glance along the street. Maurice Bewkel was almost here. The barriers had been rearranged. The gray-haired man paused, thinking the way was blocked. Then he saw that he could pass across the grating. He took that path.

As Bewkel stepped upon the grating, the foreman saw his foot strike a broad metal bar at the nearer side. A slight click occurred. Even from where he stood, the foreman could feel the slight effects of a hot draft of air which came upward from beneath the grating.

Maurice Bewkel stepped hastily forward. He coughed in choking fashion as he headed on his way. The foreman pressed the switch twice. For a moment, his gaze lingered on Bewkel’s tall form; then he called new orders to his men.

“That won’t do!” were his words. “Move those boards back. Ease those barriers toward the curb. Get busy. I’m starting for the drills.”

As the motor buzzed, the foreman gazed up toward the electric sign. The center light of each cluster had changed in hue. Single incandescents — one in each corner — registered red. The foreman looked along the street.

Maurice Bewkel was staggering. He was choking with odd gasps. He seemed to recover himself as he planted his cane against the sidewalk. Then he headed on toward the corner, a dozen yards away.

Wilton Byres had been coming along the other side of the street. The young man had avoided the grating. He was starting to cross as though to overtake Maurice Bewkel, when he saw the gray-haired man stagger. Bewkel’s cane slipped from his grasp. Faltering forward, the wealthy man sprawled as he reached the corner. Choking, gasping, he rolled over and pressed his hands to his chest.

Passersby rushed to the stricken man’s aid. Wilton Byres stood stock-still. Then, as he observed a group assembling, he sidled away and turned the corner. Back at the electric machine, the nonchalant foreman pressed his switch three times.

Green lights turned to red. Solid clusters of crimson hue were the markers of the huge electric sign. Then came repeated blinks of the borders. Some other member of the death circle, stationed on the avenue, had seen Maurice Bewkel’s collapse and had registered his location in addition to the one given by the watchful foreman.

CROWDS gather quickly in Manhattan. They come, however, from limited areas. The throng that surrounded Maurice Bewkel’s prostrate body was assembled only from the corner. Other passers went their way. The workmen, thirty yards down the side street, did not notice what had happened. The foreman did, only because he was an interested party.

Red lights of doom. They were Maurice Bewkel’s parting knell. Policemen had arrived. One was ordering men to carry Bewkel’s form while another was hailing a taxi. Three minutes later, the corner showed its usual passing throng.

Aids of crime had relaxed. The doorman at the Hotel Zenith caught a last glimpse of red lights as they changed to white. So did the shambling sandwich-board man. So did others stationed within this death-infested zone.

Wilton Byres observed the changing lights as he hurried along a side street from an avenue. He had turned in the direction of the Hotel Zenith. Even though the lights had become white again, the young man kept glancing over his shoulder as he hastened.

He jostled into a tall man as he passed. Startled, Byres stared at the stranger. He caught a burning gaze that worried him. The eyes that he saw were blazing like the lights upon the electric sign!

Such, at least, was the young man’s quick impression. He quickened his pace as he turned the corner by the Hotel Zenith. The man who had watched him allowed a thin smile to appear upon thin lips.

Then, with a glance toward the doorman at the hotel, the stranger turned and strolled down the street. He passed the sandwich-board man and kept onward. At the middle of the block, in one of those temporarily deserted spots that occur in the side streets of Manhattan, the tall man laughed.

His mirth was a strange, whispered tone. It was an echo of the laugh that had pervaded The Shadow’s sanctum. It was a grim, foreboding laugh, that marked strange understanding, yet which was tempered with grim query.

The throngs of Times Square were proceeding on their devious ways. Maurice Bewkel’s strange stroke had made no more impression than that of a pebble cast into a stormy lake. A man, collapsed upon a street corner, was but a scattered incident in this crowded section of the world’s metropolis.

Minions of death had done their work undisturbed. Doorman, bus barker, cashier, soft-drink seller and all the others were at their accustomed tasks.

No more than a passing ripple had marked their efforts. Throngs had failed to note the changing lights. Those who had seen them had thought their odd behavior to be only a mechanical change.

Yet in the midst of the most crowded zone of Manhattan, the stroke of doom had been made again. Within a circle where death could prevail, members of the death circle had performed their appointed work of evil!