Master of Death

CHAPTER V. THE SHADOW’S DISCOVERY

SHORTLY after Clyde Burke had departed with the detectives, a shape moved at the end of the corridor outside of Merle Clussig’s apartment. The tall figure of The Shadow came in view. It seemed to emerge from darkness like a materialized form. Even in the light, The Shadow’s appearance savored of the incredible.

A being clad completely in black; one whose visage was invisible beneath the brim of a slouch hat; a personage whose hands were incased in gloves of inky hue — The Shadow appeared only as a mass of darkness shaped to human form.

The black cloak swished as its wearer advanced. A lining of deep crimson flashed momentarily. The Shadow stopped before the door of the apartment; metal clicked as his hand pressed a pick into the lock. The door opened. The black form glided through. The door closed.

Within the apartment of death, The Shadow produced a small flashlight. A bright spot of illumination — a flickering disk of silver-dollar size — pointed the way toward the room where Merle Clussig had died.

The Shadow’s hand crept through the broken panel and drew back the bolt. A few moments later, this mysterious investigator stood within the second room.

The light, flickering intermittently, traveled throughout the room. Sharp eyes peered from darkness, studying the various spots where the detectives had made their search. The brilliant rays centered upon the desk; they showed the chair in which Merle Clussig had been seated when he had met his doom.

With a brief inspection, The Shadow had observed that Cardona’s search had been a thorough one. Had special pipes or hose apparatus been responsible for the injection of the deadly gas, the detectives would certainly have discovered it. Until the mode of gaseous influx had been ascertained, there could be no beginning of a clew.

The Shadow’s purpose was to solve this problem, to learn whether the plotters of Merle Clussig’s death were merely clever contrivers at concealment or ingenious persons who had discovered some baffling method of releasing carbon monoxide.

The flashlight continued to glimmer in the region of the desk. Cardona had dismantled that piece of furniture. He had discovered nothing within it. In such action, the detective had unwittingly followed the course of reasoning which The Shadow now was taking.

The closer the outlet to the victim, the more surely and more rapidly would the deadly gas accomplish its effect. With this fact in view, The Shadow began a methodical examination of the spot where Clussig had been.

The tiny light shone on the telephone; it passed to the surface of the desk, then to the chair; finally, it flickered beneath the desk. It revealed the overturned wastebasket. A black-gloved hand came into the sphere of light. The Shadow drew the wastebasket from beneath the desk.

The wastebasket was of metal construction. It was an ordinary trash container, with no possibility of special compartments. Empty, the basket showed solid walls.

The keen eyes, as they viewed those metal sides, spied something which Joe Cardona had completely failed to notice. The walls of the basket were marked with a blackish stain.

The eyes of The Shadow studied the evidence that lay before them. It was impossible to believe that an open-topped wastebasket could have contained a quantity of free carbon monoxide. There was nothing which could have retained the deadly gas. Yet the soft laugh which came from the hidden lips above the light was one that indicated a sudden understanding.

The flashlight disappeared. The wastebasket clicked as an invisible hand replaced it beneath the desk. A slight swish was the only sound which marked the passage of The Shadow from the room.

What had The Shadow learned that would prove of value? Only The Shadow knew. His keen brain had gained a clear inkling to the method whereby Merle Clussig had been so effectively murdered. The aftermath was to come.

SOME time later, a click sounded in a darkened room. A bluish light shone upon the polished surface of a table. The hands of The Shadow — no longer gloved — appeared beneath the light. Upon the third finger of the left hand glimmered a mysterious gem of deep, color-changing sparkles.

This stone, a fire opal of unique value, was the symbol of The Shadow. It was a rare jewel known as a girasol — the only adornment which The Shadow carried.

The hands of The Shadow were living things of detached action as they moved upon the table. Long fingers produced a pen and wrote in ink of vivid blue upon a sheet of paper. The Shadow’s thoughts appeared in terse inscriptions — words which faded after they had been written and observed.

Methodically, The Shadow was tracing the course by which Merle Clussig had been slain. His statements emphasized the fact that a death trap had been laid for the electrical wizard. Someone — a stranger who had departed — had placed a sure snare for Clussig; and so effectively had the work been done that no clew had remained for the police.

The hand of The Shadow wrote a name: the one which Clyde Burke had given to Joe Cardona. It was that of Spud Jagron, the ex-racketeer who the detective had stated was dead. A soft laugh came from The Shadow’s lips as the name vanished.

Joe Cardona was acquainted with affairs of the underworld, yet The Shadow knew well that the star detective was not always correct in his final assumptions. The Shadow had overheard the conversation between Cardona, Burke, and the switchboard operator. He had his own way of learning what had taken place in gangdom.

With quick strokes, The Shadow prepared a coded note. As the ink dried, his hands folded the sheet of paper and placed it in an envelope. With another pen — one that inscribed a less vivid blue — The Shadow wrote the name:

The envelope contained a message which would disappear after its recipient had perused it. It was a note to Cliff Marsland, The Shadow’s agent who operated in the bad lands. Through Cliff, a capable worker who was accepted by criminals as one of their ilk, The Shadow would learn the details of Spud Jagron’s fate.

The second note which The Shadow prepared was to Clyde Burke. It did not mention Spud Jagron’s name. Instead, it set forth definite assignments which the reporter, through his connection with the Classic, was to undertake.

Once again, The Shadow had gone a step beyond Joe Cardona. The detective had left Clussig’s apartment with thoughts of hidden pipes and mechanical artifices. The Shadow was going directly to the cause. His instructions to Clyde Burke ordered the reporter to look up data concerning experiments which had been made with carbon monoxide gas.

The Shadow knew that he was dealing with a supermind who relied upon more than mere mechanical means. Clussig’s death, by carbon monoxide, meant that someone acquainted with the possibilities of that gas had chosen it to deal death.

Any schemer might well have pumped a lethal flow into a closed room, but one who placed the gaseous substance without the aid of mechanical contrivances must surely possess an advanced knowledge of the chemical qualities of carbon monoxide itself.

Why had Merle Clussig sought publicity? Why had he been slain? How had he been lulled to a sense of security when a nefarious scheme of death already threatened him?

These were questions which now confronted The Shadow. The master of deduction was still working in the dark. He had divined that some discontent was rankling Clussig prior to the stroke of death, yet no clew existed to its cause.

What part had been played by the stranger whom Clyde Burke had recognized as Spud Jagron? The Shadow suspected that the man had placed the snare. Yet the whole plot savored of a scheming brain behind it. The mystery of a supposedly dead gangster being in the vicinity of a death trap also showed the presence of a supermind of crime.

THE SHADOW’S laugh sounded hollow beyond the circled range of light. There were problems involved that made Merle Clussig’s death appear as but a single incident. The Shadow knew that this obscure inventor could be no more than a link in a longer chain.

Where inventions were concerned, supercriminals could rise high by acquiring them. In all of his weird wars with crime, The Shadow had encountered the most amazing situations when he had dealt with scientific plotters. Murderous gangsters were men who could be met with bullets, but subtle perpetrators of unknown purpose were ones who must be met with varied measures.

Tonight, The Shadow stood upon the threshold of startling adventures. Well did he know that new and unexpected developments were to be anticipated, that the players in this drama of life and death had so far been but partially revealed.

The demise of Merle Clussig was but the prelude to insidious situations that would soon develop.

Strategy would prove essential, swiftness of action would be a necessity. New deaths might occur before The Shadow could intervene; yet once the master had gained the key to the threatening power, he could prevent the run of future crime.

The hands of The Shadow raised the two addressed envelopes and placed them in a larger one. Upon this wrapper, The Shadow inscribed the name and address of Rutledge Mann.

Through the contact agent, the messages to Cliff Marsland and Clyde Burke would be delivered in the morning.

The blue light clicked out. The laugh of The Shadow sounded in the darkness. It bore no mockery; it carried no mirth. That laugh was a grim note of mysterious knowledge — a sound that indicated a struggle of the future. Eerie tones echoed from the black-walled rooms of The Shadow’s sanctum. Uncanny reverberations died; then came silence. The room was empty.

NOT long afterward, Stanley, Lamont Cranston’s chauffeur, was startled to hear his employer’s voice speaking from the rear seat of the limousine. The car was parked on a side street near Times Square.

Stanley, watching those who were passing by, had neither seen nor heard his master enter the automobile.

“Drive back to New Jersey, Stanley,” were the words of Lamont Cranston.

The chauffeur detected a wearied note. Evidently Lamont Cranston had found nothing of interest in Manhattan. So Stanley thought.

Little did he suppose that he was chauffeur for The Shadow — that tonight his master had alone gained the clew to a crime which would excite New Yorkers on the morrow, when they read Clyde Burke’s journalistic account of its baffling details!