Mox

CHAPTER IV THE BROKEN TRAIL

IT was well after ten o’clock when Commissioner Weston and Lamont Cranston joined Joe Cardona at the apartment which Schuyler Harlew had first occupied.

Again, Cardona took charge of the investigation, while Weston and Cranston watched. Harlew’s apartment was plainly furnished. It was devoid of papers or any items that might have served as clews.

It was probable — Cardona set forth that fact — that the murderer had entered here to clean out house. Hunt high and low, the detective could find no shred of useful information.

Harlew had been a man who lived alone. He came and went as he chose. His occupation was unknown. His rent, however, was always paid well in advance. He had last been observed by people in the small apartment house three days before.

Cardona thumbed a Manhattan telephone directory. He shook it to see if it contained loose papers. He tossed the big book to the floor. It fell with opened cover near Weston’s feet.

The commissioner paid no attention to the directory. He was watching Cardona pull out a table drawer. Cranston, however, stared toward the book. His sharp eyes spied a faint trace of penciled writing. For the first time this evening, Cranston offered a quiet suggestion to Joe Cardona.

“Look at the cover of the telephone book,” he remarked.

Cardona wheeled, glanced at the speaker, then picked up the directory and laid it on the table. Under the glare of a lamp, the faint trace showed plainly. Cardona made out the initials B — U; the figures 2 — 6 — 8 — 0 — 4.

“Burset 2 — 6804,” announced the acting inspector. “Say — that must be a number that Harlew called. It’s a Manhattan number — around the Seventies, likely.”

The detective picked up the telephone. Commissioner Weston, staring at the telephone book, noted that the number had evidently been erased, but not thoroughly. He wondered at Cranston’s excellence of vision; then, as he eyed Cardona, the commissioner made a quick protest.

“You’re not calling that number—”

“No,” returned Cardona. “I’m going to get headquarters. I’ll have Markham locate it and phone me a report. After that, we can get down there.”

Markham, a detective sergeant at headquarters, responded to Cardona’s call. After giving him instructions, Cardona hung up and waited for a reply. It came in twelve minutes. Cardona gave prompt instructions; then turned to the others.

“The place is an old apartment building with a single telephone,” he said. “Markham is going up there. We can meet him. The manager apparently lives in the building. East Seventy-ninth Street.”

THE trio rode in Cranston’s limousine. When they reached their destination, Markham was awaiting them, with another detective. He announced that other men were watching the house in case a raid should be necessary.

“We’ll see the owner,” decided Cardona, pointing toward a window on the ground floor.

Weston nodded. Cardona had picked out the window because it bore a sign: Apartments To Let.

A quizzical, middle-aged man answered the door. He shrank back as Cardona exhibited a badge. He began to talk in a worried, pleading tone. Cardona motioned the others into the small room that served as a rental office, and began to talk.

“Your name is Mursled?” he questioned, following information received from Markham.

The man nodded, incapable of speech.

“Who’s been getting calls here beside yourself?” Cardona pointed to the telephone as he spoke.

“The tenants,” replied the middle aged man, still using his wheedling voice. “They come down from upstairs. I let them use the telephone, if they do not ask too often.”

“Who are the tenants?”

“The old lady on the second floor front; the two women who have the second floor back. The third floor front is empty. But the third-floor back apartment—”

“Who lives there?”

“The man you must be wanting. His name is Greerson — Peter Greerson. He has money, but not much. He always pays regular—”

“What is his occupation?”

“He says he is an inventor. I have seen him bring in big rolls of paper, with drawings on them.”

“He’s upstairs now?”

Mursled shook his head painfully. His face took on a wry expression.

“Mr. Greerson has gone out,” he declared. “He has gone out to stay away, maybe. He stops in here — in this room — tonight. He tells me he may not come back. He says he expects to get money from somebody. He has drawings with him — and he says that if he does not come back, the things upstairs are no good unless he sends for them.”

“Did he have a suitcase?”

“Two of them. Big ones. Why not? I do not stop him from going. He is paid in advance.”

“Take a look upstairs, Markham,” ordered Cardona. Then, as the detective sergeant left to obey instructions, Cardona again turned to the middle-aged man. “What time was this?”

“It was quarter past ten,” said Mursled. “Mr. Greerson, he is in a great hurry when he comes in. I think he takes a taxicab outside. I am not sure.”

“It’s nearly half past eleven now,” growled Cardona. “That’s given him an hour to make a get-away.”

Mursled, blinking through a pair of spectacles, showed interest at Cardona’s remark. The proprietor of this converted apartment house was one of those individuals whose curiosity is more pressing than fear.

“What is it that you want Mr. Greerson for?” questioned Mursled.

“Murder!” retorted Cardona, swinging savagely toward the man whom he had quizzed.

“He has killed a man?” Mursled was aghast.

“A man has been killed,” rephrased Cardona, staring narrowly at Mursled. “A man who knew this telephone number. A man named Schuyler Harlew.”

“Harlew?” Mursled gasped the name eagerly. “I heard Mr. Greerson talk to him — one week ago — on this telephone. I heard him say the name. Harlew.”

“What was the conversation about?”

“I don’t remember, sir. I just remember the one name, Harlew. That was it. Harlew.”

MARKHAM came in while Cardona was still staring at the middle-aged apartment proprietor. The detective sergeant informed that he had entered the rear apartment on the third floor.

“Nothing much up there,” announced Markham. “It looks as though the man has packed up and left.”

“I’m going up,” returned Cardona. “Take charge of this man, Markham.”

Mursled sank into a chair. His voice was pleading as he insisted that he had done nothing. Cardona swung on his heel. Followed by Weston and Cranston, he strode up the stairs.

In Greerson’s apartment, Cardona found matters much as Markham had described them. The place was illy furnished. It was untidy; but among the articles that had been left strewn about there seemed nothing of consequence.

A sheet of heavy drawing paper was thumb-tacked to a draftsman’s easel. Odd piles of paper showed only rough plans of mechanical devices. A few tools, pieces of broken electrical apparatus: these were the only articles that remained.

“Looks like an inventor’s hangout,” observed Cardona. “This stuff may be faked, though. Maybe this fellow Greerson was just posing as an inventor.”

After a short deliberation, the detective turned to Commissioner Weston. Tersely, he put forth his opinion.

“Commissioner,” declared Cardona, with emphasis, “this is as far as we’re going to get tonight. We know that Schuyler Harlew, the murdered man, must have made telephone calls to this house.

“The question is, whom did he call here? He may have wanted to talk to Mursled, the man downstairs. He may have wanted some other party, whom Mursled could reach. In either event, Mursled could throw it on to an imaginary person up in this apartment.

“But I watched Mursled when I quizzed him. He looks like what he claims to be — just the proprietor of a would-be apartment house, who lives in his own building. If there’s anything phony in his story, I’ll find it out soon enough.

“In the meantime, I’m going on the assumption that there is a Peter Greerson — a man who claimed to be an inventor — who lived in this apartment. He’s the man we want.”

“For the murder of Harlew,” returned the commissioner.

“Yes,” decided Cardona. “The trail is broken. But I’ll pick it up, and at the end of it, I’ll find the murderer. Peter Greerson is the man I’m after right now!”

“Sound theory, Cardona,” commended Weston. “I must compliment you, Cardona, upon the effective way in which you have followed the trail this far. Continue the good work, until you locate Peter Greerson.”

With Lamont Cranston, the police commissioner descended the stairs. On the way down, Weston added to the comments which he had made in Cardona’s presence.

“Cardona is the best man at headquarters,” he said, in a confidential tone. “He has a natural aptitude for rejecting the useless and keeping the useful. He gets to the point of crime. Sometimes he makes mistakes — he is intuitive, you know — but tonight, he has been at his best.

“It is obvious that Peter Greerson took to flight one hour before we arrived. The bird has flown the nest. Cardona will do his best to restore the broken trail. When Greerson is located, we shall have the murderer.”

“Exactly,” agreed Cranston.

There was a subtle note in the millionaire’s remark. Weston did not catch it. He did not sense the sarcastic touch. He did not know that through the mighty brain which lay behind the masking countenance of Lamont Cranston was running a train of subtle thought.

THE SHADOW was thinking of the words in Schuyler Harlew’s note: “Death has been the lot of others… Death will continue… I have aided a monster in his schemes of death… Midnight is the hour which the monster chooses…”

Why had Schuyler Harlew emphasized those points? The Shadow knew the answer. The enemy whom Harlew feared was a man far more powerful than the missing Peter Greerson.

Commissioner Weston and Joe Cardona had rejected the message to The Shadow. That note, however, had reached its desired destination. In the guise of Lamont Cranston, The Shadow had read every word of its scrawled lines.

He could plainly see the connection between Schuyler Harlew and Peter Greerson. The threat of death hung over others; Peter Greerson was doubtless one. The inventor had hurried away with packed bags and folded plans.

He was on his way, unsuspecting, to meet the master plotter who planned his doom!

A watch showed in Lamont Cranston’s hand as the tall millionaire stepped into his limousine. Its dial showed twenty minutes before the midnight hour. A bitter smile appeared upon the thin lips — a smile that seemed to show keen regret.

For The Shadow knew the penalty of this broken trail. It meant that Peter Greerson had passed beyond the zone of safety. Somewhere — his present location unknown — the missing inventor was reaching a rendezvous from which he would not return.

Greerson had not escaped the police. He had merely eluded the protection of The Shadow. It was too late to save him. But there would be others, perhaps, whose plight would prove equal if intervention did not come their way. It would be The Shadow’s task to save them.

Mox!

The name rested on The Shadow’s silent lips. There was the villain whom The Shadow must uncover. Murder dotted the past career of Mox. Even now, the fiend was about to commit murder unmolested.

The finding of Peter Greerson would uncover the murderer, but the murderer would not be Peter Greerson. This was The Shadow’s finding. Rarely was the master forced to bide his time while murder was in the making. Tonight, however, such was the case.

As the limousine pulled up at the Cobalt Club, Commissioner Weston alighted. Lamont Cranston paused before he followed. Within the restricting confines of the car, a soft, ominous laugh whispered forth.

It was the laugh of The Shadow; a laugh that foreboded a struggle between this powerful avenger and the fiend who called himself Mox. Peter Greerson would keep his appointment with death. The midnight hour was too close to be thwarted.

But Mox, the slayer of Schuyler Harlew, the murderer of victims to whose list Peter Greerson would be added tonight, would pay for his temerity. Wherever he might be, no matter how strong his citadel, The Shadow would seek him out.

At midnight, a final victim would be added to the roll that Mox was keeping. Before his fiendish will could again find its outlet, the hand of The Shadow would intervene.

The laugh of The Shadow died. Lamont Cranston, striding toward the entrance of the Cobalt Club, overtook Police Commissioner Ralph Weston.

Together, they entered, The Shadow and the official who did not believe that The Shadow existed!