Murder Every Hour

CHAPTER XIX THE FINAL TERMS

“BEFORE I discuss your individual predicaments,” began Caffley, to Barth and Cardona, “I should like to make a few criticisms of your methods. Until tonight, I was unable to find any point upon which I could commend your efforts in tracing crime. Tonight, however, you, Cardona, managed to perform the unexpected.

“You caught me unaware when you attempted to seize Albert Sycher. Had your men been able to effect his capture, you would have had me at a decided disadvantage. Sycher and I were avoiding contact. I would not have known of his arrest until, perhaps, too late.

“Your mistake, Cardona, came when you did not inform Commissioner Barth of your attempt. I decided that you had not traced the connection between Sycher and myself. So when Sycher fled here and told me his story, I countered promptly with the pretext that brought Barth into my power.”

Cardona stared dully as Caffley paused. He realized now that force had been the means of persuasion through which friends of Lamont Cranston had endeavored to take Sycher. The crooked elevator operator had mistaken Cranston’s friends for detectives.

“Since you recognize me as a man of crime,” resumed Caffley in a tone that showed elation, “I think it best to clarify matters which must still perplex you. Apparently you are wondering who else was in the game of murder. There was no one else. Myself, Garsher and Sycher were the only ones required.”

Cardona looked at Barth. The acting commissioner showed perplexity that Joe was forced to share. A chiding laugh came from Caffley.

“Those murdered men were fools,” declared the millionaire. “Fools to think that I would spend two million dollars for an alloy that I would not need. Their logical customer was Philo Dreblin. He could have used Duro Metal in place of his present product, calthite, to compete with my ferroluminum.

“They negotiated with Dreblin as they did with me. But the main thought of Lentz, Morath and Frieth was that of two million dollars. A sum which they knew I could produce with ease; but which Dreblin could not.

“Dreblin was trying to raise it. The deadline was approaching. I decided to turn it into a death line. I had arranged my plan more than two months before. Garsher and Sycher were ready to cooperate. We waited only until Donald Powlden had left town; so that we could use him as a foil.”

Caffley paused. He looked from man to man, expecting a response. Barth gave one.

“Proceed,” said the commissioner, sourly.

Cardona felt a sinking feeling. He knew that complete revelations would lead to but one result: Death for those who listened. But it was too late to avoid that issue.

“GARSHER entered Powlden’s,” explained Caffley. “He found the duplicate keys, and thus had constant access through the front door. I went there with him and Sycher. I arranged the details of Powlden’s trail. We took the fellow’s gun and other objects — the shoes — a fingerprinted paper — cheroots — a spectacle case.”

The story was already lining up with facts that Cardona had heard tonight from the steady lips of Lamont Cranston. Cardona wished that Cranston’s theories had been stated further.

“Swift, successive murders were my plan,” resumed Caffley. “One man could have performed them; but that would have left a possible trail. So we shared the tasks among us. Three murders suggested three murderers. You see them before you.”

“How much easier it was! How much more satisfactory! To send the weapon and the clues along from man to man, relieving each from duty after he had made his kill. There was no need for flight by any one.

“Garsher began it. He carried a large stack of cigar boxes when he visited Jeremy Lentz. One box was oversize; just large enough to hold the pistol, which fitted cattycornered, and the small-sized shoes of Powlden’s. Tell us, Garsher, how you accomplished your deed of death.”

“Easy enough,” grunted the fake cigar salesman. “I knocked on the inner door; then opened it. Lentz was on his way to answer my knock. I let him have it from two feet.

“I planted that heel print in a hurry. Used a handkerchief to pull the torn paper out of my pocket and lay it at the side of Lentz. He was just about gone. Kind of rolled over on the paper when I let it drop.

“I put the butt of a cheroot in his ash tray. Then I stuck the gun back in the cigar box and wedged the shoe on top of it. Hopped out into the hall and pulled up the window at the end. Let the cigar box drop out. Right into the old roadster that Al Sycher had parked below, in the alley.

“Fingerprints didn’t worry me, except on the window. I used the handkerchief there. But I didn’t need it when I telephoned the news down to the lobby. What did it matter if my fingerprints were on the telephone? I used it, didn’t I?”

“You see,” put in Caffley, with a chuckle, “it was part of Garsher’s task to be a prompt informant. He wanted to have an alibi for the second murder. His worry period was ended when the next news came in at six o’clock. You were holding him, Cardona. The next murder — ostensibly by the same killer — cleared Garsher completely in your eyes.

“Go on with the narrative, Sycher. From where you picked it up.”

“I BEAT it in the roadster,” laughed Sycher. “I was half a mile away by the time people were talking about the murder in Lentz’s office. I went on duty at the Belgaria. I’d gotten that job, and was all set for business.”

Sycher paused. His pale face was lighting. He dropped into his accustomed habit of using the present tense. It made his next description graphic.

“I’m wise that Howard Morath always goes out to eat after six o’clock, see?” Sycher nodded at Cardona and Barth. “I come in by the fire tower along about five-thirty and plant the cheroot butt and the heel print. All I’ve got on me is the rod, ready for business. Under my coat.

“The spec case — well, I handed that to Tukel, off-hand like, as if I’d found it in the elevator. Then I’m set. It’s either Morath or old lady Ditting who rings from the eighth. Morath, likely. I go up. Yank the door open, being sure it’s him. It’s Morath, all right. He sees the rod and starts to back away, I let him have it.

“I’m taking a look to make sure he’s done for. I plugged him neat. He’s through. So I slam the elevator door and ride down to the basement. Here’s my pal waiting for me” — he indicated Caffley — “and I slips him the gun. He knows the way out through the basement. That’s the way he came in. He’s gone by the time I’m back up to the ground floor, coming out of the elevator to tell Tukel what I saw on the eighth.”

“An excellent account, Sycher,” approved Caffley. “You bore up well, in face of a complication produced by Mrs. Ditting. Her call reached the desk before you brought the car up to the lobby. That fact, however, passed unnoticed during the investigation.”

Barth was fuming wordlessly. Cardona was realizing again how this tabbed with The Shadow’s statement. The detective had gained a profound admiration for the deductive methods that he thought were Lamont Cranston’s.

“I had left Judge Channing,” declared Caffley, taking up the story for himself. “I delayed my parting until nearly six o’clock. I was just about in time to receive the death gun when Sycher passed it to me.

“So I went to the Hotel Gilderoy. There I entered the court and waited until Newell Frieth was kind enough to admit me. That surprises you, doesn’t it?” Caffley was shaking his head in enjoyment. “Well, it was just part of a plan that I had arranged with Frieth.

“He and I were keeping our negotiations secret. He knew that it would not be wise for me to enter the lobby of the Gilderoy while visiting him to talk terms. So he himself had suggested the inside stairway, and I had visited him three times by that route.

“Shortly before seven, Frieth admitted me. I had spent a few minutes placing a cheroot in the grime and pressing it there with the heel of one of Powlden’s shoes. I also scratched the lock with a pick, to make it look as though someone had worked there.

“Frieth and I went upstairs together. A canny fellow, Frieth. Wanted a look at the contract and the certified check while we were outside the lower fire exit. I let him glimpse them and he was glad to have me come upstairs.

“He entered first from the stairway. He was going through the bedroom to the living room, when I spoke in a threatening tone. He turned about; I had the loaded pistol ready and shot him through the heart.

“I DEPARTED at once by the inner stairway. But after I had closed the door — using a handkerchief on the knob, to wipe away Frieth’s imprints as well as my own — I scratched the lock of that upper door.

“I dusted the lower doorknob, the inside one, when I reached the bottom. There I stowed the pistol and the shoe in a flat box that I had beneath my coat. I closed a wrapper about the box; when I left the lower exit and reached the street, I dropped the package in a large mail box. Then I went into the lobby of the Hotel Gilderoy and asked to see Mr. Frieth.”

Caffley gave a reminiscent chuckle.

“That package,” he stated, “was addressed to myself. I received it in the morning mail. I took the evidence to Powlden’s house. I arranged everything to my liking. The gun and its appliances in the locked drawer to which I retained the key; the shoes in the closet — the other details.

“That was when I typed a letter to Lentz, on Powlden’s machine. Using Powlden’s paper, too — one point which you did not trouble to check. I knew it would arrive in the noon mail and start the trail by the time Powlden was home.

“Garsher and Sycher were released, as I had foreseen they would be. I was not even taken into custody. Garsher had alibis at the times of the second and third murders; Sycher had one for the third. Those were enough.”

“And I, who probably would not have needed an alibi at all, was provided with one for the first killing and one for the second. Everything pointed to Powlden. You should have stopped with him.”

Caffley’s fists tightened. His eyes glared; his voice became hoarse, but furious.

“I saw trouble,” uttered the supercrook. “It started the night after Powlden’s arrest. Someone prowling in that house. I had Togo Mallock watching it. I had heard talk of a fool who calls himself The Shadow.

“Mallock framed a fake call and brought that fellow to Ninety-first Street. Mallock and his squad had trouble; but Mallock was killed, and he alone could talk. I was ready to hire someone in his place; but the trouble ended, somehow, until tonight.

“Garsher and Sycher were back at their occupations. They were acting normally, but they were on the lookout. Ready in case The Shadow appeared again, although I had decided that he also must have been eliminated in his fight with Togo Mallock’s band.

“Tonight, two men tried to snatch Sycher from his elevator. He escaped through the basement and came here. His description made the episode appear to be the work of bungling plain-clothes men. I called Garsher and brought him here.”

Caffley glared at Cardona, apparently believing that the struggle at the Belgaria had been the work of men posted there by the detective. Then, with an angry scowl, the supercrook concentrated on Barth.

“I called you, commissioner,” declared Caffley, “to hold you as a hostage. I needed Cardona also. Between you, perhaps you knew too much. Had you weakened at my threats, I would be able to deal with you at present. I could give you a chance to live.

“It was only by threatening to take Lawrence’s life that I persuaded you to call Cardona; even then, only when I promised to talk terms if you managed to bring Cardona here. I even intimated that I might give myself up to justice.”

CAFFLEY paused with a sour laugh, in which Garsher and Sycher joined. The three were alike in fiendishness. Murderers all, who cared nothing about further death.

Barth stared steadily at Caffley.

“Hold me as hostage,” suggested the commissioner, in a persuasive tone. “Deal death to me if necessary. But spare my chauffeur and Cardona.”

Jeering laughs from Sycher and Garsher. Barth blinked angrily. Caffley’s face straightened and took on its mild droop. He motioned downward with his right hand. His companions lowered their guns. Caffley glanced toward Cardona.

“Right behind you,” stated Caffley, “are the curtains to the rear room that opens from this one. I have a third servant posted there; he is covering you at present, so a break on your part will mean death.”

With this admonition, Caffley made a slight upward motion with his left hand, a signal to the hidden henchman to be ready. Going to the table, Caffley produced pen, paper and ink which he placed before Wainwright Barth.

“Write a letter. commissioner,” said Caffley, in a tone that carried a kindly note. “State that you have found it necessary to be absent from New York. I shall keep the letter; then I can release Cardona and Lawrence.

“If they preserve silence, all will be well. I shall have the letter to protect myself. I do not care what happens to Powlden. If Cardona can ease him from the picture, well and good.”

Barth nodded. Cardona clenched his fists. He did not want to compromise with these crooks. But he saw safety for Barth and Lawrence; it seemed the only course.

Barth wrote the letter. He handed it to Caffley, who blew upon the ink to dry it; then read the message and nodded.

“You have complied exactly, commissioner,” declared the murderer. “It must have cost you an effort to do so. I believe you would actually be willing to go through with any proposal that would save Cardona and Lawrence.

“But your efforts are wasted” — Caffley’s face tightened in evil leer; his voice became a sneer — “because I do not choose to keep the terms I just suggested! I wanted you to show yourself for a fool; to come down from your haughty perch and grovel before me!”

“This letter pleases me.” Caffley delivered an insidious chuckle. “I shall remember it and relish it. As for the letter itself, I do not need it.”

VICIOUSLY, Caffley ripped the letter into shreds. While Barth glared indignantly, the murderer threw the torn pieces on the floor and ground them with his heel, deep into a tufted rug.

He swung about and raised his right hand as a signal to Garsher and Sycher. The gesture called for revolver shots, to riddle Barth and Cardona before the doomed prisoners could rise.

A sharp exclamation came from the commissioner’s lips. Cardona stared in amazed silence. Both saw what Caffley saw as he turned.

George Garsher and Al Sycher were standing frozen, staring past Caffley and the seated men, looking toward that curtain at the rear of the room. Neither of the armed men had raised a revolver at Caffley’s beck.

A weird laugh came in sinister whisper. Fierce in its low-toned mockery, it filled that room where men were doomed. No ear could have picked the exact source of that strange mirth; but Caffley knew whence it came. He could tell by the direction in which his fellow murderers were staring.

Caffley wheeled toward the curtain at the rear. Those hangings had parted. At the foot of the draperies lay the unconscious, half-choked figure of a thug-faced servant; Caffley’s hidden henchman.

Above the prone body stood a being clad in black. Blazing eyes burned from beneath the brim of a slouch hat. A cloak collar, upturned, hid all other features of the grim visitor.

From gloved fists projected the muzzles of huge automatics. These were the threats that had forced Caffley’s murder pals into rigidity. One gun was trained on George Garsher; the other on Albert Sycher.

A snarling gasp from Hiram Caffley. Too well the supercriminal recognized the identity of this powerful avenger. The supermind of murder was confronted by The Shadow!