Death Sleep

CHAPTER II A GENTLEMAN IN BLACK

BRIDGE, as played at Seth Tanning’s, was different from the game that was relished at the Cobalt Club. The members of that exclusive organization had no time for conviviality. They took their game seriously; and the struggle of wits invariably reached its height after the hour of midnight.

Yet on this particular night, a game had ended abruptly, shortly before one. Three players were seated about a table in a tobacco-laden card room, indulging in a post mortem. Suddenly deprived of a fourth player, they had been forced to end their game.

The door of the card room opened. The three men looked up to see a tall arrival dressed in evening clothes. They viewed a firm, steady-faced countenance that they all recognized. That hawkish visage was well-known at the Cobalt Club. The arrival was Lamont Cranston, the celebrated globetrotter who frequented the club whenever he was in New York.

“Here’s our fourth!” exclaimed a player. “Come on Cranston! Sit in the game. You’ll be a worthy successor to the chap who just left.”

“Who was that?” The question came evenly from Cranston’s lips.

“Wainwright Barth,” chuckled the player who had spoken. “Playing in good luck, too, but he had to quit.”

“Very unusual,” remarked Cranston. “Barth usually stays in to the end when he is winning.”

“Not since he was appointed police commissioner,” put in another player. “That job has put a crimp into his bridge game. He left here in a big hurry about fifteen minutes ago.”

“A call from headquarters?” inquired Cranston, in a quiet tone.

“He didn’t say,” was the reply. “He just mentioned that he had received word of an important case. Needed his personal attention. So the big boss of the bluecoats beat it. Come on, Cranston. How about taking Barth’s place?”

“Sorry,” was the response. “Early appointments tomorrow. I am just leaving for my home in New Jersey.”

Lamont Cranston strolled from the club room. He crossed the quiet lobby and moved toward a telephone booth.

A SINGULAR phenomenon occurred during Cranston’s progress. His tall form cast a blackened shadow on the tiled floor. A long, fantastic splotch of darkness, that shadow ended in a profiled silhouette that did not dwindle until Cranston had entered the telephone booth.

A long, thin finger dialed a number. A short pause; then came a quiet voice across the wire:

“Burbank speaking.”

“Report.”

The order came from the lips of Lamont Cranston; but it was not in the tone that others had heard the globetrotter use. The voice of Lamont Cranston had become a strange, sinister whisper that Burbank recognized.

“Report from Burke,” acknowledged Burbank. “He is following a tip received at the Classic office. Cardona is investigating case at Apartment B 5, Vanderpool Apartments. Police commissioner summoned there. Burke promises further report later.”

“Report received.”

Lamont Cranston strolled from the telephone booth. He crossed the lobby and passed bowing attendants as he neared the outer door. The automobile starter saw him coming and signaled with a whistle. A magnificent foreign limousine drew up in response to the starter’s call. A uniformed chauffeur alighted and opened the door for Lamont Cranston to enter.

As the car started along the street, Cranston raised the speaking tube that connected with the front seat. He spoke in a quiet, even tone to Stanley, the chauffeur. He instructed the driver to turn uptown and to park on a certain street just west of Seventh Avenue. That designated spot was within a block of the Vanderpool Apartments.

The limousine rolled onward. Its single passenger was shrouded in the darkness of the rear seat. The spark of a cigarette was glowing; at intervals, a soft laugh whispered from the tonneau. As the car neared its appointed parking place, long hands lifted a thick briefcase from the floor. Folds of dark cloth emerged. A cloak slid downward over shoulders. A slouch hat settled on a head. Black gloves were drawn on limber fingers.

When the limousine came to a stop, the rear door opened simultaneously. A blackened form glided free of the car. The door closed silently. The emerging figure blended with the darkness of an old house front. Stanley remained stolid behind the wheel. He would wait here until he received new instructions.

STANLEY had not heard the sound of his master’s departure. That was not unusual. For Lamont Cranston had become The Shadow. From a leisurely, almost indolent club man, he had transformed himself to a quick, alert being of semi-invisibility. Blending with the night, The Shadow had fared forth to learn of the events that had brought Joe Cardona and Wainwright Barth to the Vanderpool Apartments.

Unseen — his very identity unknown — The Shadow was a master who battled crime. Through contact with the underworld, he learned when evil was brewing. Frequently, his thrusts from the dark came before crooks had gained opportunity to begin their nefarious operations. There were times, however, when strange events occurred without The Shadow’s ken. On such occasions, The Shadow was forced to follow the initial lead of the police.

Tonight, Joe Cardona had encountered a most amazing mystery. The acting inspector had notified Commissioner Wainwright Barth. Only by minutes had The Shadow missed learning of the mystery. Barth had left the Cobalt Club just before his arrival. But in the meantime, Clyde Burke, alert reporter of the New York Classic, had discovered that Cardona had set out on an important case.

It was Clyde’s business to keep in touch with detective headquarters. He was more conscientious in that work than was any other police reporter in Manhattan. For Clyde served more than the New York Classic. He was a secret agent of The Shadow. Immediately upon learning of Cardona’s destination, Clyde had communicated with Burbank, hidden contact man who also served The Shadow. Thus The Shadow, too, was arriving at the focal point.

Two courses lay open. To follow one, The Shadow could have entered the Vanderpool Apartments in his guise of Lamont Cranston. As a friend of the police commissioner, he could have listened in on Cardona’s findings. But The Shadow had rejected that system for this night. Having missed Barth at the Cobalt Club, he did not care to stroll in on the police investigation. The guise of Cranston was one that he did not care to overstrain.

The second course was to arrive as The Shadow. That was the choice that he had taken. Hence the supposed Lamont Cranston had become a gentleman in black: The Shadow. His course was taking him toward the scene of mystery. If difficulties proved too great, The Shadow could rely upon Clyde Burke’s report, for the newspaper man was on the job. But with The Shadow, difficulties seldom proved insurmountable.

A BLACKENED shape reached the paved alleyway beside the Vanderpool Apartments. Footsteps were clicking on cement. A policeman was pacing this area. The Shadow could trace the man’s movements in the dark. On the right was the looming bulk of the Vanderpool Apartments, with its scattering of lighted windows. On the left was the brick wall of an old warehouse building. This was solid in its blackness.

The pacing officer neared the spot where The Shadow stood. A flashlight swept its beam along the wall. The rays passed by the tall form that stood motionless against the wall. The officer missed sight of the cloaked figure of The Shadow. His footsteps sounded down the alleyway.

The Shadow moved. His hands pressed against the wall. A squidgy sound — too soft for the policeman to hear — announced a vertical ascent. With suction cups attached to hands and feet, The Shadow was making upward progress, avoiding the windows where lights were showing. His phantom figure neared the third floor.

Here The Shadow paused. He had reached a small balcony — scarcely more than an ornamental railing — that projected from an apartment window. He needed the suction cups no longer. Similar rails showed dimly above. The Shadow’s hands gained a hold above. One story — two — he settled upon the fifth-floor balcony, just outside an opened window. He was outside the apartment of Seth Tanning.

Straight across the alleyway was the roof of the warehouse, marked by a whitened parapet of moulding stone. Above that was the dull glow of the Manhattan sky. Crouched at the side of Tanning’s window, The Shadow carefully avoided the background of the skyline, for it would have revealed his blackened shape. His keen ears caught the sound of voices, just within the window. Shifting slightly, The Shadow gazed into the lighted room.

There The Shadow spied the figure of Wainwright Barth. The police commissioner was tall and slightly stooped; he carried his bald head thrust forward in eaglelike fashion. Upon his nose, Barth wore a pair of pince-nez spectacles. His eyes, gleaming through the lenses, were surveying the swarthy countenance of Detective Joe Cardona, here in capacity of acting inspector.

THERE were others in the room: a police sergeant and two officers; a gentleman and a lady whom The Shadow was later to identify as Mr. and Mrs. Clark Doring; also another man who proved to be Handley Brooks, the occupant of a front apartment on this floor. Clyde Burke was not in sight. Evidently Barth had decided that the reporter must wait outside until the investigation was complete.

“Tanning was seated here” — Cardona was indicating a chair at the bridge table — “and his wife was opposite. Wescott over here — his wife in this chair. They were rigid, commissioner, stiff as statues. For a moment, I thought they were dead.”

“What made you decide otherwise?” inquired Barth.

“The way they were sitting,” responded Cardona. “Holding cards — glasses — like they were in the middle of a game. Then it hit me that they were asleep — but that didn’t answer, either. A death sleep — that’s what it was.”

“So you had them removed?”

“Yes. It’s only one block over to the Talleyrand Hospital. I sent for an ambulance and took them there in a hurry. No report from the doctors yet; they’re sending for a specialist — Doctor Seton Lagwood — who’s connected there. Knows all about paralysis, sleeping sickness and all that.”

“I should have liked to have viewed these subjects,” decided Barth. “Nevertheless, Cardona, I must commend your action in sending them to the hospital even before you called me. Now that I have arrived, I shall sift this mystery. Let us proceed with those who first arrived.”

With this assertion, the commissioner turned to Clark Doring and his wife. The two began to tell their story. Wainwright Barth adjusted his pince-nez and cocked his bald head to one side as he listened. When it came to fathoming mysterious events, the police commissioner imagined himself without an equal.

In this assumption, he was wrong. Within a dozen feet of the commissioner, another listener was stationed, silent and unseen. The Shadow, cloaked in darkness, was ready to catch statements that would pass unnoticed by Wainwright Barth.

For the police commissioner, despite his egotism, was a poor hand at solving crime. There were many in New York who could have beaten him at that game. But none could have equaled the master of deduction who lurked outside that open window.

The Shadow, himself a living enigma, was one to whom all mysteries — no matter how baffling — would be revealed once he had learned the details that accompanied them.