Mox

CHAPTER XIV THE SHADOW ENTERS

JUNIUS THARBEL relished his triumph over Joe Cardona. While the New York detective and the reporters stared at the scrawled sheet upon the table, Tharbel stood back and watched them, triumph in his eyes.

The note was exactly as Tharbel had read it. The words, though crudely written, were legible. Cardona noted something which Tharbel had not stated. The note was signed with a single letter — “S.”

“Where did you get this?” challenged Cardona.

“Where did you get your note?” queried Tharbel.

“It was brought into my office,” retorted Cardona. “By the man who is here with me — Cuthbert Challick.”

“Well,” chuckled Tharbel, “my note was delivered at my home. Unfortunately, the man who left it did not stay. I found it wedged under the door.”

“A hoax.”

“We shall see. I have a test.”

Cardona suddenly remembered the coach dog that Tharbel had found in the house of Mox. Yes, the county detective had a test; one that he could use when Hoyt Wyngarth was brought in tomorrow. If the dog should recognize Wyngarth as its master!

“Suppose” — Tharbel was making a bland suggestion — “that we communicate with Neswick at the inn. He would like to meet Mr. Challick. You and I, Cardona, can compare the statements of the two.”

Tharbel’s tone was one of quiet conciliation. He had bettered the New York sleuth. He wanted cooperation. Cardona had nothing to do but agree.

“All right,” he said, in a surly tone. “Call up Neswick. Let’s talk to him.”

Tharbel arose and walked into the other office. Cardona, Challick, and the reporters followed him. Challick partly closed the door to the front office. The paper which Tharbel had exhibited was still upon the desk.

Tharbel telephoned. He received word that Neswick was out for a walk with Scudder. The two were expected to return at any minute. The county detective settled complacently in his chair. Cardona sat down close by the desk.

One of the reporters went out for cigarettes. Challick, opening an ornamental case, found that he had but two of his own. Apparently following the reporter’s lead, he strolled from the office also.

MINUTES went slowly by. Silence reigned as the men in Tharbel’s office awaited word from Joel Neswick. There was a motion in the hallway; no one observed it. The door of the front office — not the connecting one, but a portal that led to the outer hall — opened softly.

A figure in black entered. It was The Shadow. Stealing, swiftly, the phantom glided to the connecting door and peered through the crack which remained.

He viewed Tharbel and Cardona; Clyde Burke and another reporter. Cardona, recovered from his gloom, had just begun to speak.

“So you landed a suspect, eh?” he questioned. “Who is this Hoyt Wyngarth?”

“A man we located in Albany,” returned Tharbel brusquely. “That’s all we know.”

“Well” — Cardona’s tone was doubtful — “I hope he’s Mox. Good luck to you, Tharbel, but you can’t place too much reliance in notes that come under your front door.”

“Perhaps not,” admitted Tharbel, with a slow smile.

Silence in the rear room. The Shadow glided away from the connecting door. His sharp eyes glittered as they looked about the front office.

The Shadow approached the desk and studied the note upon the table. A pile of blank sheets of paper lay close by. The Shadow scorned them. Instead, he drew a thinner sheet from beneath his cloak, and laid it on the table.

With a pencil, he copied the note which Tharbel had received. Word for word — with notable exceptions. Instead of Albany, he wrote New York. Instead of Hoyt Wyngarth, he put in the name of Irving Salbrook.

The work was craftily performed. The handwriting of The Shadow so closely resembled the original scrawl that not even an expert could have detected any difference.

The Shadow did not touch the note upon the table. He placed his own sheet of paper beneath his cloak, and disappeared through the door to the hall. The swish of his black garments was inaudible. He disappeared into the darkness of the stairs.

A few minutes later, Cuthbert Challick came up the steps. He was smoking a cigarette. He pointed to the slot machines lined up along the wall as he entered.

“The reporter is playing one of those,” he remarked. “Over in the cigar store across the street. By the way” — he was turning to Cardona — “I sent those bags that we left at the store over to the inn. I thought we would probably be staying here all night.”

“Of course.” It was Tharbel who spoke, not Cardona. “You want to be here, Mr. Challick, when we quiz this prisoner Wyngarth. Your statements may prove of great value.”

Tharbel, for the first time, remembered the note that he had left in the other room. He arose and hurried through the door. He brought back the paper that bore Hoyt Wyngarth’s name, and thrust it in a drawer of his desk.

NEW footsteps on the stairs. Two men came in. They were carrying rifles. Tharbel arose to greet one of them, a pudgy, fat-faced fellow, who wore a perpetual smile.

“Hello, Harman!” he exclaimed. “Ready to go out to the lodge?”

“Sure thing,” returned the fat-faced fellow. “Meet my friend, Wade Hosth. Just met him up at the inn. I was late. Hosth thinks he’s a good shot. You can show him what shooting is tomorrow.”

Junius Tharbel shook hands with a tall, sad-faced man, who was the exact contrast of Hollis Harman. He turned and introduced the pair of arrivals to Joe Cardona and Cuthbert Challick.

“I guess Neswick’s not back at the inn yet,” Tharbel remarked. “Well, that doesn’t matter. It’s only a block down there. You’re staying over night. Why don’t you go down and meet him there? It’s more comfortable than here.”

“Aren’t you going to record Mr. Challick’s complete statement?” questioned Cardona, in surprise.

“You’ve got it, haven’t you?” returned Tharbel abruptly. “I’ve got Neswick’s; you’ve got Challick’s. Scudder is over there. He can attend to the details.

“I’m shooting early tomorrow. They’re bringing Wyngarth in, and I’ll have to be here before noon. I’m going to eat and sleep. I’ve got to keep in trim, you know. In New York” — Tharbel was grinning as he looked at Cardona — “you’ve got open season all the year around. You can bag gangsters any time you want. But out here, it’s different. We get rusty if we miss the hunting when we have it.”

With this sally, Junius Tharbel picked up his rifle and departed with Hollis Harman and Wade Hosth. Joe Cardona looked at Cuthbert Challick. The inventor shook his head and smiled.

“Let’s go over to the inn,” suggested Cardona.

Followed by Clyde Burke and the other reporter, the two from New York left the offices. Clyde, as an afterthought for Junius Tharbel’s negligence, turned out the light. He saw a gleam from the front office and extinguished the light there also. He swung the doors shut. Their spring locks clicked.

Complete gloom pervaded the room in which The Shadow had performed the strange mission of imitating the note which Junius Tharbel had shown to Joe Cardona.

One note — that named Hoyt Wyngarth — had reached the hands of the county detective. The other — naming Irving Salbrook — remained in The Shadow’s possession.

Hoyt Wyngarth and Irving Salbrook. These men were unknown factors. One had been thrust into the picture of crime. The other was absent — would be absent — until The Shadow should choose to deliver the note that he had prepared.