Double Z

CHAPTER IV. BURKE BRINGS ACTION

“BURKE!”

Clyde Burke stepped up to the city desk. His eyes met those of Dale Ward. The two men had much in common. Both were journalists of long standing. Burke, formerly a reporter with the defunct Evening Clarion, was now handling special assignments for the tabloid Classic.

“You’ve been talking with Harwood about the Wise Owl job, eh?” questioned Ward.

“Yes,” replied Burke. “He told me he had to jam some stuff through for it, but that he won’t be able to handle it very long. It occurred to me that perhaps—”

“That you would be the man to handle it.”

“Exactly.”

The city editor laughed.

“You win, Burke,” he said. “I was thinking you were the man for the job. When Harwood spoke about it, I marked you down for the Wise Owl. You were pretty friendly with Caulkins, weren’t you, old man?”

Clyde nodded.

“Well,” continued Ward, “that’s one reason why I figured on you. It’s also the main reason why I’m going to tell you something that wasn’t in to-day’s story.”

Ward half rose from his swivel chair to make sure that no one was near the city desk. Then he leaned forward and buzzed in Burke’s ear. A look of surprise appeared on the reporter’s face.

“Judge Tolland!” he exclaimed in a low voice. “You mean that he may be in this?”

“That’s what Caulkins was saying when they got him,” declared Ward. “I’m laying off it for the present. But keep your eye peeled. Listen, Burke: One of three things is sure. First” — Ward tapped his left thumb with his right forefinger — ”Caulkins may have seen Tolland and have gotten some real dope from him.

Second” — the city editor tapped his left forefinger — “Double Z bluffed Caulkins into thinking he was Tolland. Third” — Ward indicated on another finger — “Double Z is—”

Ward did not end the sentence. Clyde Burke finished it for him silently. The reporter’s lips framed a single word.

“Tolland!”

“Right’” said the city editor briskly.

“I’ll be on the lookout,” declared Clyde.

“Keep mum,” warned Ward. “This detective, Cardona, has the right idea. Double Z is in the mix-up.

Keep him guessing!”

“I’ll run up to East Eightieth now,” suggested Clyde.

“Good idea,” agreed Ward. “Maybe you can trace back over the trail Caulkins followed. Then get in with the bunch that know. See how they’re taking this story we ran to-day.”

Clyde Burke sat down at an obscure desk in a corner of the news room. He drew a fountain pen from his pocket and wrote on a sheet of paper. Any one who might have observed him would have decided he was simply adding up his expense account. Clyde Burke looked the part of a police reporter.

But this firm-faced young man was engaged in a different task. He was inscribing a note of strange appearance. He was writing a series of coded letters, and the words which those letters formed told the vital facts which he had just heard from the lips of the city editor.

Clyde folded the sheet of paper and sealed it in an envelope. He sauntered from the newspaper office.

He turned his steps toward Broadway, then to Twenty-third Street. There he reached a dilapidated old building. He entered.

Inside he ascended a flight of rickety stairs. He stopped in front of a glass-paneled door, upon which appeared the name:

The reporter dropped the envelope in a mail chute cut in the door. He departed immediately. No one had seen his action. In fact, no one had ever seen a person enter through that door with the grimy, cobwebbed glass. Yet notes dropped there by Clyde Burke always reached their destination.

Clyde was thinking of that destination as he traveled uptown. He knew where his message was going.

For the obscure office of B. Jonas was a receiving place used by that mysterious man of the night — The Shadow!

Clyde Burke, to the world a newspaper reporter, was actually a trusted agent of this master of crime detection.

DURING the past few months, it had been Clyde’s duty to watch for all startling developments in criminal activities. As a police reporter, especially with a tabloid newspaper that hungered for crime news, Clyde was in an excellent position to do this work.

Now, with the Wise Owl assignments in his hands, his contact with the underworld was reaching its zenith. He had already gained an insight into strange facts concerning the death of Joel Caulkins, and he had passed his findings on to his mysterious employer.

Despite numerous messages that he had delivered, Clyde had received no orders from The Shadow during these recent months. This was a singular state of affairs. Clyde could not recall any other period of inactivity on the part of The Shadow that was as long as this one. He wondered, sometimes, what had become of The Shadow.

Had the battler of crime withdrawn from the field? Had some shrewd gang leader pierced the unfathomable veil that obscured The Shadow and forced him to seek safety outside of New York?

These were unpleasant thoughts, but Clyde, at times, had worse qualms. Perhaps something had happened to The Shadow!

For years gangsters had been trying to put him on the spot. Had they succeeded?

The only ray of comfort was The Shadow’s broadcasts. Once a week this man of mystery spoke over the radio, and his uncanny laugh thrilled thousands of eager listeners. The broadcasts were going along on schedule; nevertheless, it was possible that some other man had taken The Shadow’s place. No one had ever positively identified The Shadow, Crime Detector, with The Shadow, Radio Broadcaster.

Various tips on crime that Clyde had dropped in the Jonas office had been apparently ignored, although the reporter had felt sure that The Shadow would respond to them. To date, The Shadow had not, to Clyde’s knowledge, taken the slightest interest in either the disappearance of Judge Harvey Tolland or in the peculiar correspondence that the police had received from a man called Double Z. But this was not disconcerting.

The sudden departure of a crooked jurist — that was the general opinion of Tolland — was not likely to interest The Shadow, who dealt with supercrooks. The strange notes from Double Z, hitherto regarded as the epistles of a madman, were also beneath The Shadow’s notice.

Double Z had predicted certain deaths. Some had occurred; others had not. The few that had transpired had been minor gang killings. Never had the hand of Double Z appeared as that of the actual murderer.

But now the cry was out. Newspapers considered the death of Caulkins to be a gang killing, and at the same time suggested murderous work on the part of Double Z. Cardona’s description of the case as the work of an inexperienced murderer had been played up in the Classic. Double Z had become a menace.

Clyde Burke anticipated action from The Shadow. He felt sure that the Tolland connection would bring it.

WITH his mind occupied on these thoughts, Clyde arrived at the old house on East Eightieth Street. He studied the place from across the street. He noticed the heavily curtained front windows of the third floor.

He sauntered across the street and ascended the steps. The door was locked.

A gruff voice spoke from the sidewalk.

“Hey, there!”

Clyde turned. He found himself staring at the squat, square-shouldered form of Detective Sergeant Wentworth.

“Oh, it’s you, Burke,” said the officer in an affable tone. “Didn’t recognize you at first. Want to get in?”

“Sure thing.”

Wentworth was explaining his presence as they entered the hallway and ascended the stairs.

“We’re keeping watch on the place,” he said. “If this nut Double Z is mixed up in the killing, there’s no telling what may happen. He’s just bugs enough to come back to the place. Might have left something here. So we’re lying in wait.”

Wentworth unlocked the door of the third-floor apartment. He and Burke entered the gloomy room, where Caulkins had died. The detective pointed out the telephone, and indicated the position in which the body had been found.

“Who lived here?” questioned Clyde.

“Wish we knew,” said Wentworth. “Name downstairs says Joseph T. Dodd, but we haven’t got any clew from it. We do know that some fellow did live here a while. We’ve found clothes and other articles. The only trouble is, he seems to have been careful to keep himself unknown. Nothing is here in the way of identification.”

Clyde looked around the room, while the detective kept up a line of intermittent patter. The supposed actions that had taken place in the room were well established in Wentworth’s mind.

“Caulkins came in,” he explained. “He found the guy who had coaxed him here. They were talking about this Double Z stuff. Caulkins went to the phone— right there; the other bird was standing here.

“Just as Caulkins began to spill the story, the other fellow outs with a gat and plugs him four times.

Caulkins didn’t have a chance, even though the guy that killed him was a bum shot. Right here is where we figure the murderer was standing. Nervy, eh, while Caulkins was phoning?”

Clyde nodded. Somehow, Wentworth’s description, a duplicate of Cardona’s findings, did not fully satisfy him; yet he could not explain what was wrong. He and the detective left the house. Clyde grunted a good-by, and started back to the newspaper office. On the way, he stopped at the building on Twenty-third Street. Standing in the dim hall, he scrawled a short coded message, describing his visit to Eightieth Street, and dropped the note in the door that bore the name Jonas.

BEFORE the desolate-looking house on East Eightieth Street, Detective Sergeant Wentworth continued his vigil. Dusk came. The door of the old house across the street was dim in the increasing darkness.

Watching it, Wentworth fancied that he saw a moving blur pass momentarily in front of it. He strolled across the street and tried the door. Locked. Wentworth went back to his post.

As his footsteps clicked down the stone steps to the sidewalk, a low laugh sounded in the vestibule. The soft mirth did not reach Wentworth’s ears. A man was standing in the vestibule — a man clad in black. He was totally invisible in the darkness. He had entered the front door in spite of the detective’s vigil.

Now, a light appeared in the inclosure — a tiny spot of light no larger than a half dollar. It shone directly upon the lock of the inner door. A queer-looking key appeared within that circle of illumination. A black-gloved hand used the key to probe the lock.

The door opened. It did not close immediately. The man in black was still working at the lock. The key moved in and out, as though being used to probe the metal depths.

At last, the door closed. Silence reigned with darkness. The light shone at intervals, moving upward on the stairway. It stopped on the third floor. Its rays swinging pryingly, stopped at the very spot where Joel Caulkins had stood in the hallway, unobserved by the man he was following. The tiny light, close to the floor, revealed slight dust marks.

Metal clicked against metal. The door of the apartment opened. The ray of the flashlight widened as it advanced uncannily, not a foot above the floor. It seemed to be following an invisible trail.

It paused; then, swerving, went to the door of the side room in which Caulkins had hidden himself.

Next, the light swung around the room, and aimed downward, to reveal the carpet. The floor covering was cheap and plain. It showed wear near the door and by the table. There was another spot where it was worn. The flashlight paused at that place, then moved upward. Its light glinted back from the silvered surface of the mirror that hung on the wall.

After a pause, the light went to the table. It moved busily about. It showed the telephone, off slightly to one side, and the chair, placed at an angle.

It examined the far side of the table, and the floor beside it. There, in the carpet, was a tiny stain. The light started toward the door, probing the carpet. It revealed another small dark splotch.

Then it went down the stairs, seeking, occasionally stopping to note some trifling sign. It reached the vestibule and made a thorough search. Here were no splotches — only a broad smear, in the midst of a dust-streaked floor. The light was tiny now, as it ran up the side of the wall and stopped on the name of Joseph T. Dodd. Then the light went out.

The front door opened softly, and a thin figure slipped through, to merge with thickening night.

Wentworth became suddenly alert across the street. He fancied that he had seen another motion at the door of the house; then he laughed at his imagination.

Why should he be concerned with every fleeting shadow that might appear before that door? He was posted to watch for a living being— not a phantom!

And so, when Wentworth ended his vigil, being relieved by a plain-clothes man, he made out a simple report: namely, that no one had visited the house that day — with the exception of Clyde Burke, reporter on the Classic.

His report said nothing of a shadow in the dusk. If it had, it might have attracted the attention of the observant Joe Cardona. For the star detective knew more about shadows than did Wentworth.

Joe Cardona, alone of the New York detective force, might have suspected the truth: that The Shadow, living phantom of the night, had come and gone at the old house on East Eightieth Street. In answer to Clyde Burke’s messages, the strange man of darkness had investigated the spot where Joel Caulkins had died.

Silently, invisibly, The Shadow had learned facts which had escaped the observation of Joe Cardona; and those facts pertained to other than Joel Caulkins — namely, Judge Harvey Tolland, and to the man known only as Double Z.