Mox

CHAPTER XVIII DEATH RETURNED

JOE CARDONA was at the window, peering through the dusk. He was boldly facing the death that had struck down Hoyt Wyngarth.

Like Cuthbert Challick, however, the sleuth was warned. His quick eyes had spotted the object which the inventor had spied just before the knife arrived. A distorted figure was clambering from a tree on the other side of the vacant lot. Challick had seen it motionless; Cardona spotted the creature more quickly, now that escape had become its lone desire.

Cardona fired. He knew that he had missed. Another burst came from his revolver; a second miss, just as the creature dropped to the ground, with sprawling, spidery limbs. A third shot blazed from the detective’s gun.

This was a hit. Cardona had caught the dwarfish figure on the rise. The creature staggered, then began to bound away in long, limping leaps, running parallel to the row of trees.

Cardona swung his revolver as he fired. He loosed all his bullets rapidly but vainly. The range was too difficult for the detective to hit the moving target.

An automobile had pulled up beside the jail. Cardona saw a man leaping from it. Framed in light, Cardona shouted out an order:

“Get the murderer! Capture him! He can’t go far! He’s wounded!”

Peering through the dusk, Cardona realized that the man from the car was Junius Tharbel. Instead of pursuing the bounding dwarf, the county detective stood stock still, while Cardona shouted in rage. The limping creature was about to get away!

Cardona saw other men dashing from the jail. He shouted for them to take up the pursuit.

It was then that Tharbel acted. He raised a rifle that he was carrying. As the running creature, almost faded in the dusk, leaped a fence a hundred yards away, the county detective quickly fired.

Simultaneously, the long-limbed fugitive collapsed. Tharbel, lowering his rifle, strode toward the office building, gesturing to the men from the jail to indicate that they should bring in the quarry that he had bagged.

Two figures came running from the car to join Tharbel. Less than three minutes later, the county detective stamped into his office, with Hollis Harman and Wade Hosth behind him. Tharbel glowered in rage as he saw the body of Hoyt Wyngarth upon the desk.

“Is this your doing?” he demanded of Cardona. “Why was the prisoner brought from his cell before I arrived? I am in charge of this case — not you, Cardona!”

“I am the one who acted,” interposed Barry Davies, as Cardona scowled back his challenge to Tharbel. “Wyngarth wanted to make a confession. If you had been here, it would have been in your hands.”

“A fine botch!” snorted Tharbel, his hatchetlike countenance flushing crimson. “You’re over me, Prosecutor Davies, and you had a right to do this. But you made a great mistake. It was my job to get this man’s statement.”

He swung to the court stenographer and pointed to the notebook which the man had dropped upon the desk.

“Read what you’ve got!” he ordered.

In a quavering voice, the stenographer obeyed. When he had finished his reading, Tharbel roared like an enraged bull.

“He was stalling you!” he cried. “Making you look like the suckers you are! He was talking about Mox. He knew he was cornered. This man is Mox — a murderer — and you’ve let him die without learning the truth!”

With a glum expression, Tharbel stared at Wyngarth’s dead body. He seized the handle of the knife, and twisted it free from the dead man’s back. He looked at the long, sharp-pointed blade; then, with a violent, angry stroke, drove the point deep into the desk beside the body, and left the knife quivering there.

There were calls from below. Tharbel, pacing the floor, swung to the window. The men from the jail were barely visible in the growing dusk. They were carrying a limp object. Tharbel ordered them to bring their burden upstairs.

The office assumed the appearance of a morgue when the twisted body of the ugly dwarf was deposited upon the floor. The creature was dead. The men who had picked him up said that he had died in their arms.

“He tried to talk to us,” informed one. “He sort of waved his arms and said: ‘Mox — Mox;’ then he thumped his hands against his chest and said: ‘Sulu — Sulu.’ After that, he just coughed and died.”

“See?” challenged Tharbel, swinging around to look at every member of the silent group. “There’s the answer. He meant that he had killed Mox. Then he told his own name. Sulu.”

Swinging past Wyngarth’s body, the county detective yanked open the desk drawer and brought out the two notes — the one which he had held; the one which had come to Cardona. He pointed to the letter “S” which served as signature on each message.

“That means Sulu,” affirmed Tharbel. “It’s all plain now. Wyngarth was Mox. Sulu was his servant. Does that knife look like the one that plugged Schuyler Harlew?”

“Exactly,” returned Cardona. “But I don’t see how it could be thrown that distance—”

CARDONA paused as one of the men who had brought in Sulu’s body grinned sheepishly. From his hip pocket he drew a short, thick-barreled gun that he had brought back beneath his coat.

“I picked this up side of the fence,” said the man. “Shoved it under my coat, and on my hip, so I could help carry the dead guy. Looks like an air gun.”

It was an air gun. Cardona saw that the moment that he received the weapon. He pulled the knife from Tharbel’s desk and found that the cylindrical handle fitted perfectly in the muzzle of the air gun.

“Now I know how he got Harlew,” announced Cardona soberly. “He could have plugged him through the open window, where Harlew was sitting. This gun has a range, and is accurate. We’ve seen it work.”

“Yes,” retorted Tharbel sourly. “You’ve seen it kill Mox.”

He pointed to Wyngarth’s body as he spoke.

“What about Salbrook?” questioned Cardona. “I brought him in here—”

“I’m going to free Salbrook,” interrupted Tharbel testily. “This case is ended. Mox is dead. Put down this statement” — he was turning to the court stenographer — “and you’ll have my final conclusions.”

“Mox — Jarvis Moxton — was Hoyt Wyngarth in disguise. He had a servant named Sulu, who escaped with him. He probably deserted Sulu, who, to get revenge, put a note under my door, telling where Wyngarth could be found.

“After that, Sulu, to square himself with Mox, tried to make amends by naming Irving Salbrook in another note. Salbrook was probably the former owner of the dog, and Sulu figured that the test with him would get Wyngarth free.

“When that didn’t work, Sulu became afraid. He watched the jail, and when he saw Wyngarth — Mox — brought up here, he decided to kill him before he could name Sulu as the murderer of Schuyler Harlew.”

“How about questioning Salbrook?” asked Cardona, when Tharbel had completed his statement. “He can tell us whether or not he once owned the dog that—”

“You’ve let the real crook die!” interrupted Tharbel hotly. “Wyngarth is the one I wanted to question. He was the prisoner I landed. You brought Irving Salbrook here; you can take him away.”

“I’ve got no charge against him,” declared Cardona. “I was after the man who killed Schuyler Harlew. Here he is” — Cardona pointed to Sulu — “and that ends it for me.”

“Then release Salbrook after I turn him back to you. I intend to question him in my own way. I’ll tell him what has happened; if he wants to talk, he can. If he wants to keep mum, he’ll go out of my jail in the morning.”

Tharbel turned toward the county prosecutor, and glared as he spoke. Barry Davies, realizing that his own use of authority had ruined Tharbel’s plans, made no objection. Cardona, however, was still bitter in his protest.

“Maybe I helped lead Wyngarth to his death,” said Cardona, “but I didn’t kill Sulu. I wounded him — that’s all. You’re the one who killed him, Tharbel, when you didn’t have to kill him.”

“Then we’re quits,” glowered Tharbel. “You killed my suspect; I killed yours.” Assuming his show of authority, Tharbel waved toward the bodies as he spoke to Scudder and the men from the jail.

“This is no morgue,” he said testily. “Get these corpses out of here. Then clean the place up. Take them in here.”

OPENING the door ahead, Tharbel stepped into the lighted front room. As he disappeared from view, the others heard an angry exclamation come from his lips; then came the sound of joyous yelps. Tharbel came retreating through the door, the brown-spotted Dalmatian leaping upon him as a dog that has found its master.

“Who brought the hound here?” shouted Tharbel, as he cuffed the dog. “Take him away from me! Take him away!”

The coach dog did not seem to mind the blows that Tharbel was delivering. Clyde Burke leaped forward and grabbed the dog’s collar. The Dalmatian snarled fiercely. It broke away, madly.

Cuthbert Challick seized the beast by the collar. He swung it about, and began to pull and drag it toward the front room.

Under this treatment, the Dalmatian cowered. It lost its fight, and whined as Challick pushed it into the front room. Slinking, the dog went to a far corner and lay quiet.

As Challick stepped aside, the men carried the first of the two bodies past. Clyde Burke was nursing scratches that he had gained in his struggle with the dog. Junius Tharbel was striding about the room in ruffled fashion.

“That settles it,” he blurted. “The fact that the dog made friends with Irving Salbrook doesn’t mean a thing, now that this has happened, I doubt if Salbrook ever saw the dog before.”

The men had come back for Wyngarth’s body. Tharbel pointed as they carried the dead form into the front room.

“There goes Mox,” decided the county detective. “He was the first person the dog liked. After that, it was ready to make friends.”

“But with very few people,” rejoined Cardona, in an artful tone.

“What’s that?” Tharbel caught up the statement. “Hm-m-m. Next thing we know” — he was laughing sullenly — “you’ll be asking me to arrest myself.”

The county detective swung to the prosecutor. His tone still showed the anger which he had ceased to suppress. Tharbel’s customary reserve had disappeared.

“You started this,” he told the prosecutor. “Go ahead and finish it. You have my summary. Improve it if you can. Get the coroner for the inquest on those dead men. Plenty of witnesses saw what happened. I’m tired of this interference, and I’m glad the case is over. I’m going out to the hunting lodge, and have a real day’s shoot tomorrow. There won’t be any one chasing after me to bring me in here.

“I’ll be in tomorrow evening — at my home. If there’s anything that turns up, I can take care of it after that time. That settles everything.”

Thinking deeply as he listened to Tharbel’s dictatorial words, Joe Cardona was staring at the floor. His eyes were upon a blackened silhouette that seemed rooted to the spot where it lay. That splotch was bringing back recollections.

“Do what you want with the dog,” Tharbel was adding from the door. “He’s a keen animal. He liked me today because I had been out with the dogs since daybreak. If nobody else wants him, we can give him to Harman to keep around the lodge.”

CARDONA turned to see what reply the prosecutor intended to make. There was none. Swinging back, Cardona noticed that Cuthbert Challick had closed the door to the front room, and was strolling away from it.

Tharbel was leaving. Hollis Harman, the jovial-faced fellow, was going with him. So was Wade Hosth, the tall, solemn huntsman. Neither of Tharbel’s companions made a comment.

“What are you going to do about it?” queried Cardona, of the prosecutor.

“Follow Tharbel’s suggestions,” replied Davies. “He’s the county detective — not I. This piece of machinery” — he tapped the air gun — “will be yours after the inquests.”

“I’m going over to the inn,” remarked Cuthbert Challick, from the door by the hall. “I’ll have dinner with you, later on.”

“All right,” agreed Cardona.

After Challick had started down the stairs, Cardona suddenly remembered the spot on the floor. He glanced hastily about him; besides the prosecutor and the stenographer, there were only three others in the room. Clyde Burke, Joel Neswick, and Scudder had remained where they were.

Then Cardona looked to the floor. The silhouette was gone. A thoughtful expression appeared upon the detective’s swarthy face. He was positive now that the case was not closed. New angles lay ahead.

Hoyt Wyngarth was not Mox. The man had been too frightened, too sincere, to be the master fiend. Mox still lived; the villain could yet wreak mischief. Sulu, the murderous minion, was dead. Whatever malice Mox contemplated would have to be of his own doing.

Hoyt Wyngarth was dead because he had talked too much. Danger, perhaps, faced Irving Salbrook if he should dare to speak. Cardona saw the possibilities that lay ahead, however. Salbrook might be valuable, once Mox was brought to bay.

That was the game: to uncover Mox himself! While Salbrook still remained a prisoner, the master plotter would never travel far from Darport.

Uncover Mox? How could it be done?

The answer lay in the profiled shadow which Cardona had spotted on the floor. The ace detective had failed to note the man whom that silhouette represented, but he had a hunch as to who its owner was.

With The Shadow still in Darport, there would be a chance to corner Mox. That was the game that Cardona meant to play. In the back of his head, the star detective saw the way.

He had confidence — Cardona — now that he had seen the mystic profile. For that splotch of facial blackness was a token that Cardona had seen before.

Cardona had recognized the silhouette as the sign of The Shadow’s presence. Here, in this room, The Shadow had viewed double death, and had witnessed the events which followed it.

The Shadow, like Joe Cardona, would be ready to end the evil career of Mox. With such an ally close at hand, Cardona felt that he could win the grim game!